of those five there is but one material and of any consequence in the main concernments of the Cause the other four being either extrinsecal or of less importance more then to shew that nothing in that History which was found liable to exception should escape uncensured Assuredly it had been a work more proper for so great an Antiquary a man so verst and studied in all parts of Learning to have returned a full and complete Answer to that History had he found it answerable then to except against some few passages in it of no greater moment and by so doing to justifie and confirm the Author in all the rest Exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis is a good old rule and which I might crave leave to use to my best advantage but that I am resolved to try my fortune and make good those passages against which the Lord Primate hath excepted To the defence whereof with all due reverence to his Name and Memory I shall now proceed Noster duorum eventus ostendat utra gens sit melior And first the Lord Primate tells us this that when he gave himselfe to the reading of the Fathers he took no heed unto any thing that concerned this Argument as little dreaming that any such Controversie would have arisen amongst us p. 74. And I concur with him in words though perhaps not in meaning also there being none who reads the Fathers with care and caution who can suppose that any Controversie should arise about the Sabbath against the morality whereof the Fathers generally declare upon all occasions The Lord Primate tells us of Saint Augustin pag. 75. That purposely selecting those things which appertained unto us Christians he doth wholly pretermit that Precept in the recital of the Commandments of the Decalogue To which Testimony though this alone may seem sufficient to confirme the point I shall adde some more And first the said Saint Augustine tells us that it is no part of the Moral Law for he divides the Law of Moses into these two parts viz. Sacraments and Moral Duties accounting Circumcision the New Moons Sabbaths and the Sacrifices to appertain unto the first ad mores autem Non occides c. and these Commandments Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not commit Adultery and the rest to be contained within the second The like saith Chrysostom that this Commandment is not any of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which naturally were implanted in us or made known unto our conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that it was temporary and occasional and such as was to have an end where all the rest were necessary and perpetual Tertullian also in his Treatise against the Jewes saith that it was not Spirituale aeternum Mandatum sed temporale quod quandoque cessaret not a spiritual and eternal institution but a temporal onely Finally to ascend no higher Justine Martyr more expresly in his Dispute with Trypho a learned Jew maintains the Sabbath to be onely a Mosaical Ordinance and that it was imposed upon the Israelites 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of their hard-heartedness and irregularity And as for the Lords day which succeeded in the place thereof the Fathers generally think no otherwise of it then as an Ecclesiastical Institution not founded upon any precept either of Christ or his Apostles but built perhaps upon some Apostolical practice which gave the Church authority to change the day and to translate it from the Seventh on which God rested to the First day of the week the day of our Saviours Resurrection And though the Lord Primate to gain unto the Lords day the Reputation of having somewhat in it of Divine Institution ascribes the alteration of the day to our Lord and Saviour page 76. yet neither the Author whom he cites nor the Authority by him cited will evince the point And first the Author will not do it the Homily De Semente out of which the following proof is taken being supposed by the Learned not to have been writ by Athanasius but put into his Works as his by some that had a mind to entitle him to it as generally all the Works of the Ancient Fathers have many supposititious writings intermingled with them Secondly the Authority or Words cited will not do it neither though at first sight they seem to come home to make proof thereof The words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the Lord translated the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the Lords day or first day of the week Which words are to be understood not as if done by his Commandment but on his occasion the Resurrection of our Lord upon that day being the principal motive which did induce his Church to make choice thereof for a day of Worship For otherwise the false Athanasius whosoever he was must cross and contradict the true who having told us that it was commanded at the first that the Sabbath should be observed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his own words are in memory of the accomplishment of the worlds Creation ascribes the institution of the Lords day to the voluntary usage of the Church of God without any Commandment from our Saviour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. We celebrate saith he the Lords day as a memorial of the beginning of a new Creation which is plain enough In the next place it is acknowledged by the Lord Primate That generally the word Sabbatum in the writings of the Fathers doth denote our Saturday p. 74. Which notwithstanding either because it was affirmed by the Historian History of the Sabbath Part 2. Chap. 2. Num. 12. that the word Sabbatum was not used to signifie the Lords day by any approved Writer for the space of a thousand years and upward or not to leave the Sabbatarian Brethren at so great a loss in that particular he would fain find out one though but one of a thousand who hath used it to denote our Christian Festivities also Where not that the Lord Primate doth not say as indeed he could not that the word Sabbatum was used to signifie the Lords day but onely to signifie the other Festivals of the Church the Christian Festivities as he calls them in which how much he is mistaken we shall see anon That one here meant and mentioned is Sidonius Apollinaris Bishop of Auvergne in France who describing the moderation of the Table of Theoderick King of the Goths upon the Eves and the excess on the Holy-day following he writeth of the one that his Convivium diebus profestis simile privato est that his Table on the working-dayes was furnished like the Table of private men but of the other dayes or Festivals he telleth us this De luxu autem illo Sabbatario narrationi mâ—ae supersedendum est qui nec latentes potest latere personas that is to say that his excess or Sabbatarian luxury required
Bishops of his party should at an Ordination take the subscription of the party ordained to both Articles the Articles of England not being received instead but with those of Ireland p. 120 121. A sorry shift but such as was conceived to be better then none though as good as nothing But leaving this Dispute to another place as before was intimated we now proceed to the Examination of some other passages in the Lord Primates Letter unto his Honourable Friend in which he first chargeth the Historian for speaking inconsiderately in saying that before that time viz. Anno 1615. The Lords day had never attained such credit as to be thought an Article of the Faith though of some mens fancies And why was this so inconsiderately spoken Because saith he he that would confound the ten Commandments whereof this must he accounted for one unless he will leave us but nine with the Articles of Faith had need be put to learn his Catechisme again But this I look on as a flourish or a fansie onely For I hope the Lord Primate doth not think the Historian so extremely ignorant as to mean there a justifying and salvifical faith but that he takes faith there in the general notion as it importeth a firm perswasion and beliefe that those things are undoubtedly true which are commended to him by the Church in which he liveth or found in any creditable and unquestioned Author And in this notion of the word the matter of a Commandment being made a Doctrine may be called an Article of the Faith without any such scorn as to be put to learn the Catechism again The Articles of England by such as write of them in Latine are called Confessio Ecclesiae Anglicanae praeter Confessionem Anglicanam quam mihi ut modestam praedicabant c. saith the Arch-Bishop of Spalato In like manner and in the same sense and signification as the Articles of the Belgick Churches and the Kirk of Scotland are called confessio fidei Ecclesiarum Belgicarum Confessio fidei Scoticana sit de caeteris that is to say the confession of the Faith of those several Churches By which name the Articles of Ireland being also called by a most eminent learned and judicious person as Doctor Bernard sets him out p. 121. and the new Doctrine of the Sabbath being made a part of that Confession it may be said without any absurdity or being put to School again to learn the Catechisme that till that time viz. 1615. the Lords day never had attained that credit as to be thought an Article of the Faith But to make the matter sure and beyond exception I must put Dr. Bernard in mind of a Book entituled The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines assembled at Westminster by the Authority of Parliament concerning a Confession of Faith In which Confession of the Faith it is said expresly that As it is in the Law of Nature that in general a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God so in his word by a positive moral and perpetual Commandment binding all men in all ages he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him which from the beginning of the world to the Resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week and from the Resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week which in Scripture is called the Lords day and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath The institution and keeping of the Lords day here is made an Article of the Faith an Article of that Confession of the Faith which by the Assembly of Divines whereof the Lord Primate was nominated to be one was recommended to the two Houses of Parliament and yet I trow the Lord Primate wil not send the whole Assembly to learn their Catechism again unless it were one of the Catechisms of their own making either the larger or the lesser 't is no matter which But the Lord Primate stayes not here he goes on and saith That he that would have every thing which is put into the Articles of Religion to be held for an Article of Faith should do well to tell us whether he hath as yet admitted the Book of the ordination of Bishops and the two volumes of Homilies into his Creed both which he shall find received in the Articles of Religion agreed upon in the Synod held at London Anno 1562. But unto this it may be answered that the Book of the Ordination of Bishops and the two Volumes of Homilies may be so far taken into the Historians Creed as to believe as much of either as is required of him in the Book of Articles For he may very warrantably and safely say that he does verily believe that the second Book of Homilies doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine and necessary for those times that is to say the times in which they were first publisht and that the Book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and ordering and that it hath nothing that of it self is superstitious or ungodly All this the Historian doth and may believe without making it an Article of his Faith except it be in that general notion of the word which before we spake of and in which notion of the word the Article of the Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops c. may as well finde a place in the Confession of the Faith of the Church of England as that Article of the Parity of Ministers hath found admittance in the Confessions of the Belgick Scotish and other Reformed Churches For in the Belgick Confession Art 31. it is thus declared quantum vero attinet Divini verbi Ministros ubicunque locorum sint eandem illi Potestatem Authoritatem habent ut qui omnes sint Christi unici illius Episcopi universalis unicique Capitis Ecclesiae Ministri The French Confession bearing this Title Gallicarum Ecclesiarum Confessio fidei that is to say The Confession of the Faith of the French or Gallick Churches as the Scotish Confession is called Confessio fidei Scoticana doth affirm as much viz. Credimus omnes veros Pastores ubicunque locorum collocati fuerint eadem aequali inter se potestate esse praeditos sub unico illo capite summoque solo universali Episcopo Jesu Christo And so no question in the rest The Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops may as well be an Article of the Faith amongst us in England as the Parity of Ministers amongst those of France or the Low-Countries These Interlocutories being thus passed over the Lord Primate comes at last to his final and definitive sentence for what remaineth after the Verdict is once given but that Judgment in the Case be pronounced accordingly And the Judgment is given us in these Words viz. By the
RESPONDET PETRVS OR The ANSWER of PETER HEYLYN D. D. To so much of Dr. Bernard's Book Entituled The Judgement of the late Primate of Ireland c. As he is made a Party to by the said Lord Primate in the Point of the SABBATH And by the said DOCTOR in some others To which is added AN APPENDIX In Answer to certain Passages in Mr Sandersons HISTORY of the Life and Reign of K. CHARLES Relating to The Lord PRIMATE The ARTICLES of Ireland And the EARL of Strafford In which the RESPONDENT is concerned LONDON Printed for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivy-lane and R. Marriot in S. Dunstans Church-yard Fleet-street M DC LVIII THE AUTHORS PREFACE To the Reader IT was upon the 2. of January that Doctor Bernards Book entituled The judgment of the late Primate of Ireland c. came to me from a friend in London which I had no sooner caused to be read over to me but I lookt upon it as the most unwelcome New-years-gift that could have been sent me from an enemy So far I found my self concerned in it that without a manifest betraying of my Fame and Innocence I was not to defer my Answer notwithstanding all the difficulties which appeared before me I considered of my own unfitness to enter into new disputes having so little use of my eyes and hands for such imployments the eminence of the name which I was to deal with in reference to whom I could be lookt upon no otherwise then as a Grashopper compared with the son of Anak and finally the disagreeableness of some part of the subject to the complexion and temper of the present times But on the other side that saying of S. Hierom Se nolle quenquam in suspicione Haereseos silentem esse That he would have no man hold his peace when suspected of Heresie over-ballanc'd all And in this Book of Doctor Bernards I found my self accused of Heterodoxie at the least if not of Heresie reproacht with violating my subscription and running cross unto the publick Doctrines of the Church of England in the Book of Homilies Reproches not to be endured but by guilty persons such as sink under the calamity of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-conviction So that being forced upon an answer I was resolved to make it as speedy as I could before prejudice and prepossessions had made too strong a head against me in the minds of men I never lov'd to have such work stick long in my fingers and therefore notwithstanding the extremity of the season and the tyrannie of a Quartan Ague under which I languished I gave it such a quick dispatch that it might easily have been publisht by the middle of the Term then following But contrary to my expectation it met with so many rubs between the Pen and the Press that the Term was past before it could be undertaken And then the undertakers were not willing to make too much haste a dead vacation being held to be no fit time to quicken and give life to the sale of new books not extremely popular But to say truth what I have lost one way by these delayes I have gained in another For by this means I have had the opportunity of seeing my self abused and reprochfully handled in the late History of the Life and Reign of King Charles the Author whereof hath been entertained by Doctor Bernard as a souldier of Fortune to undertake this Pen-combat for him though he would rather be supposed to serve under the Lord Primates Colours as the nobler General But serve he under whom he will t is all one to me who am design'd to bear the blowes not made the gentler by the Name and Reputation of the party who engaged him in it The best is that he hath not found me unprovided for my own defence and if he chance to fall back with some loss of Honour he must blame himself It hath been alwayes my desire not to die in debt and therefore I have paid this Creditor with an answer also For though I know well that neglected calumnies are of least continuance Convicia spreta exolescunt as it is in Tacitus yet this is to be understood of such common fames as pass upon the breath of rumor and are taken up on hear-say onely or from short-liv'd Pamphlets not of such calumnies as are enrolled upon Record or passe into the body of a publick History If contumelies of this nature were to go unanswered the party wronged must live defamed and die remedilesse a scorn unto the present times and a perpetual ignominy to the ages following To prevent which I have taken the best course I could to right my self against all opponents to let both Doctor Bernard and this fresh Adventurer understand the hazard which they so wilfully run into by provoking an unwilling Adversary who was resolv'd never to have looked back upon those Disputes which formerly had too much exercised both his Pen and Patience But being what is past cannot be recalled we must all submit our selves and our performances to the Readers judgment who I desire may be impartial and unbiassed on either side that so the truth onely may obtain the victory and let the people shout and say with them in Esdras Magna est veritas praevalet that is to say Great is truth and mighty above all things 1 Esdr c. 4. v. 41. From Lacies Court in Abingdon March 18. 1657. RESPONDET PETRVS Or the Answer of PETER HEYLYN D. D. TO So much of Doctor BERNARDS Book entitled The Judgement of the late Primate of Ireland c. SECT I. The priviledges of the dead infringed by Dr. Bernard The Answerer drawn unwillingly to this encounter The occasion and necessity of it The Fathers generally declared against the morality of the Sabbath The day of worship not transferred from the seventh day of the Week to the first by Christ our Saviour as the Lord Primate seems to make it The word Sabbatum not used to signisie the Lords Day by the Ancient Writers The Lord Primates great mistake in the meaning of Sidonius Apollinaris Sabbatarius Luxus what it was and of the riotous feastings of the Jews on the Sabbath day The Lords day vulgarly though but lately called the Sabbath by the artifice of the Sabbatarians contrary to the known meaning of the word Sabbatum in the Latine tongue IT was a pious wish of Tacitus that renouned Historian when he had brought Agricola to the funeral Pile ut in loco Piorum manibus destinato placidè quiescat that he might rest without disturbance in the place appointed for the souls of vertuous persons Thus Dido with like piety prayed ut senis Anchisae molliter ossa cubent that the bones of old Anchises might rest in peace and King Josia gave command that the Bones of the Prophet which prophesied against the Altar of Bethel should not be removed In which respect the grave is called by Tertullian
not to be spoken of because it could not be concealed from those who lived most retiredly If either the Lord Primate or Sirmondus the Jesuite could infer from hence that the word Sabbatum was used by Apollinaris to signifie or denote our Christian Festivities much less the Sunday or Lords day I shall miss my mark They say it is a sign of ill luck for a man to stumble at the threshold and never was such a stumble made by a man of learning in the first beginning of a work for clearly Sabbatarius luxus relates not to the Lords day nor the other Festivals but is there used proverbially to signifie that excess and riot which that King used at his Table on the dayes aforesaid The proverb borrowed from the Jewes and the riotous feastings on the Sabbath It s true the Jews did commonly fast till noon upon their Sabbath till the devotions of the morning were complete and ended on which account they tax the Disciples of our Saviour for eating a few ears of Corn on the Sabbath day Matth. 12. 2. but then it is as true withal that they spent all the rest of the day in their riotous feastings not onely with plenty of good cheer but excess of wine In which regard whereas all other marketing was unlawful on the Sabbath dayes there never was restraint of selling Wine the Jews believing that therein they brake no Commandment Hebraei faciunt aliquid speciale in vino viz. quòd cùm in Sabbato suo à caeteris venditionibus emptionibus cessent solum vinum vendunt credentes se non solvere Sabbatum as Tostatus hath it And for the rest of their excesses Saint Augustine telleth us that they kept the Sabbath onely ad luxuriam ebrietatem in rioting and drunkenness and that they rested onely ad nugas luxurias suas to luxury and wantonness they consumed the day languido luxurioso otio in an effeminate slothful ease and finally did abuse the same not onely deliâ—iis Judaicis in Jewish follies but ad nequitiam even to sin and naughtiness Put altogether and we have luxury and drunkenness and sports and pleasures enough to manifest that they spared not any dainties to set forth their Sabbath Tertullian hath observed the same but in fewer words according to his wonted manner who speaking of the Jewes in his Apologeticum adversus Gentes Cap. 16. hath told us of them that they did Diem Saturni otio victui decernere devote the Saturday or Sabbath unto Ease and Luxury But before either of them this was noted by Plutarch also an Heathen but a great and grave Philosopher who layes it to their charge that they did feast it on their Sabbath with no small excess but of wine especially and thereupon conjectureth that the name of Sabbath had its original from the Orgies or feasts of Bacchus whose Priest used often to ingeminate the word Sabbi Sabbi in their drunken ceremonies From whence we have the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to triumph dance or make glad the countenance And from hence also came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sirname of Bacchus or at the least some Son of his mentioned in Coelius Rhodiginus as is observed by Dr. Prideaux in his Tract De Sabbato This said the meaning of Apollinaris will be onely this that though Theoderick kept a spare Table on the other dayes yet on the Festivals of the Church he indulged unto himself a kind of Sabbatarian luxury that is to say such riotous feasting and excess as the Iewes used upon their Sabbath Nothing in this to prove that the word Sabbatum was used by any approved Writer for the space of a thousand years and upward to signifie either the Lords day or any of the Christian Festivities as the Lord Primate would sain have had it which notwithstanding partly by the diligence of our Sabbatarians and their active Emissaries and partly by the ignorance of some and the easiness of the rest of the people the Sunday or Lords day is generally called by no other name then by that of the Sabbath he who shall call it otherwise then the vulgar do being branded commonly with profaneness or singularity And yet if any of these fine fellows should be asked the English of the Latine word Sabbatum they could not chuse but answer that it signified the seventh day of the week or the Saturday onely Or if they should every Clerk Notary and Register in the Courts of Judicature would deride them for it who in drawing up their Processes Declarations Entries Judgements and Commissions never used other Latine word for Saturday but Dies Sabbati as long as any of those forms were written in the Latine tongue And they continued in that tongue till toward the later end of the late long Parliament in which it was ordered that all Writs Declarations and other legal instruments of what kind soever should be made in English the readiest way to make all Clerks Atturnies Registers c. more ignorant of Grammar learning then they were before SECT II. The Lord Primates judgement of the Sabbath delivered in two Propositions His first Proposition for setting apart some whole day for Gods solemn worship by the Law of Nature found both uncertain and unsafe no such whole day kept or required to be kept by the Jewes or Gentiles His second Proposition neither agreeable to the School-men or the Sabbatarians nor grounded upon Text of Scripture He reconciles himself with the Sabbatarians by ascribing an immutability to a Positive Law but contrary therein to the first Reformers and other learned men of the Protestant and Reformed Churches He founds the Institution of the Sabbath on Genesis 2. An Anticipation or Prolepsis in that place of Gen. maintained explicitly by Josephus and many of the most learned of the Jewish Rabbins as also by Tostatus and his followers amongst the Christians implicitly by those who maintained that the Sabbath was not instituted in the first beginning The like Anticipations frequent in the holy Scripture and justified by many of the Ancient Fathers and not a few learned men of the later times The Sabbath not a part of the Law of Nature BUt now before we can proceed to such other passages which the Lord Primate hath excepted against in History of the Sabbath either by name or on the by it will be necessary that we know his own Judgement and Opinion in the ground of this Controversie as well concerning the morality of the fourth Commandment as the true ground and institution of the Sabbath And to find that we must consult his Letter to Mr. Ley in which he telleth us That for his own part he never yet doubted but took it for granted that as the setting of some whole day apart for Gods solemn worship was juris Divini naturalis so that this solemn day he means the Sabbath should be one in seven was juris Divini positivi
recorded in the fourth Commandment p. 113. And in these words we have two several propositions viz. First That the setting apart of some whole day to Gods solemn worship is juris Divini naturalis and secondly that the Sabbath which he meaneth by this solemn day was juris Divini positivi recorded in the fourth Commandment both which shall be examined in their several turns And first I would fain know of Doctor Bernard or any other of the Lord Primates Chaplains since he cannot answer for himselfe where we shall find that the setting apart of some whole day for Gods solemn worship was juris Divini naturalis That some time was to be set apart for the worship of God is agreed by all and reckoned by most knowing men not interessed in any party to be the moral part of the fourth Commandment but that this time should be some whole day is neither imprinted in mans heart by the Law of Nature nor ever required of the Iews nor observed by the Christians Or granting that some such whole day was to be set apart for Gods solemn worship I would fain know in the first place when the said whole day was to begin and how long to continue whether it were a whole natural day or a whole artificial day as they use to phrase it And if it were a whole natural day then whether to extend from midnight to midnight after the reckoning of the Gentiles or from Sun-setting to Sun-setting from Even to Even according to the account of the Iewes or if a whole artificial day then whether a day of twelve hours onely after the reckoning of the Iewes or from Sun-rising to Sun-setting be they more or less according to the several Climates under which men lived Which points unless they be well stated the conscience will have nothing in this case to rely upon In the next place considering that the Lord Primate speaks indefinitely of some whole day without determining when and how often the said whole day was to be observed I would fain know whether such a whole day was to be set apart once or twice in the week or whether it would suffice to the fulfilling of the moral part of the fourth Commandment if it were onely once a month or once a year or once in seven year or once in the course of a mans whole life For being it is said indefinitly that the setting apart of some whole day to Gods solemn worship is juris Divini naturalis ingraffed in the Heart of man by the Law of Nature it may be probably inferred that the setting apart of one whole day at what time soever a man pleaseth may very sufficiently comply with the intention of that Law and consequently discharge the man so doing from all further observance which how far it will satisfie the consciences of men or be accounted acceptable in the sight of God I shall leave to others to determine But admitting that this whole day which the Lord Primate speaks of was to have as frequent a return as the Iewish Sabbath I would then know when such a whole day was either ordinarily kept or required to be kept by the Iewes or Gentiles That no such whole day was ever ordinarily kept by the Iewes appears by their riotous feastings on the Sabbath day which before we spake of by which it is most evident that the one half of that day was either spent in Luxury and Riot or in Rest and Idleness and that the least part of the other moyety was spent in holy Meditation and much less in the solemn worship of God which in the first settlement of that Nation in the Land of Canaan was performed onely in the Tabernacle as afterwards in the Holy Temple at which but few of the people and those which dwelt near the place of worship could give any attendance We meet indeed with a Commandment that the Sabbath was to be continued from Even to Even Levit. 23. 32. that is to say from Friday evening at Sun-set until the like time of Sun-set on the Sabbath day Which Precept being first given by God with reference to the day of Atonement or Expiation and commonly applyed by the Iewes to the weekly Sabbaths requires no otherkeeping of the day for that space of time more then the afflicting of their souls by a solemn fast then onely rest from labour all servile works And this appears plainly by the first words of the said 32. verse where it is said That it should be unto them a Sabbath of rest compared with vers 30 31. where forbearing all or any manner of work is the chief thing required to the observation of that day And yet that rest from labour and cessation from all manner of work frequently intermitted also either with reference to the solemn keeping of the day it self Mat. 12. 5. or the preservation of the creature Luke 13. 15. 14. 5. But that the whole day extending from Even to Even should be either spent in afflicting their souls as it is meant onely of the day of Atonement or Expiation which was observed but once a year or in the acts of solemn and religious worship if it be understood of the weekly Sabbath to which the Iews commonly applied it also as before was said as I no where find So have I no reason to believe it without better grounds Certain I am that so much of the Sabbath day after this account as intervened between the Sun-setting on the Friday and the Sun-rising on the Sabbath was partly spent in rest from labour and making necessary preparations for the day ensuing and part thereof in necessary repose and sleep for the refreshing of their bodies and support of nature and how the rest of that day was spent we have seen before There is another place in Scripture much prest upon the consciences of the people by the rigid Sabbatarians of these times to stave them off from any lawful recreation on their new made Sabbath that is to say Isa 58. 13 14. where God speaks thus unto that people If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and shalt honour him not doing thine own wayes nor finding thine own pleasure nor speaking thine own words then shalt thou delight thy self in the Lord. But if we look better on this Text and compare it with vers 3. of the same Chapter where we find mention of a fast and of the afflicting of their Souls on the day of that fast we may see easily that the Text so much insisted on by our Sabbatarians relates onely to the day of Atonement which being a day of publick humiliation and of confessing their sins to the Lord their God required a stricter withholding of themselves from their lawful pleasures then any of the weekly Sabbaths So as admitting that this whole day was by God required to be
when God first blessed the seventh day and sanctified it Whence well this question may be raised Whether before the publishing of Moses ' s Law the Sabbath was to be observed by the Law of Nature And that the Lord Primate doth fetch the original of the Sabbath from the beginning of the World is evident from a passage in his Letter to Dr. Twisse p. 78. In which saith he addressing his speech unto that Doctor The Text of Gen. 2. 3. as you well note is so clear for the ancient institution of the Sabbath and so fully vindicated by Dr. Ryvet from the exceptions of Gomarus that I see no reason in the earth why any man should make doubt thereof And yet the matter is not past all doubt neither I am sure of that For other men as eminent in all parts of Learning and as great Masters of Reason as Doctor Ryvet ever was have affirmed the contrary conceiving further that those words in the second of Genesis are spoken in the way of a Prolepsis or Anticipation Gods sanctifying the day of his Rest being mentioned in that time and place not because the Sabbath was then instituted but because it was the occasion of setting apart that day by the fourth Commandment to be a Sabbath or a day of holy repose and rest to the House of Israel Of this opinion was Tostatus in his Comment on Gen. 2. countenanced by Iosephus Antiq. l. 1. c. 2. by Solomon Iarchi one of the principal of the Rabbins and many other learned men of the Iewish Nation as appears by Mercer a learned Protestant Writer and one well verst in all the learning of the Iewes in his Comment on Gen. 2. who addes de proprio that from Gods resting on that day Postea praeceptum de Sabbato natum est the Commandment for sanctifying the seventh day was afterwards given And this opinion of Tostatus passed generally for good and currant with all sorts of people till Ambrose Catharinus one of the principal sticklers in the Councel of Trent opposed him in it who though he grant the like Anticipation Gen. 1. v. 27. disalloweth it here And disallowing it in this place he not onely crosseth with Tostatus but with some of the most learned Christian Writers both of the Church of Rome and the Protestant Churches who hold that the Sabbath was not instituted in the first beginning nor imposed on Adam as a Law to be observed by him and his posterity Of this opinion was Pererius a learned and industrious man of the Romish party in his Comment on the second of Genesis And of this opinion was Gomarus that great undertaker against the Arminians in his Tract De origine institution Sabbati with many other eminent men of both Religions too many to be named in this place and time whose opinions in this point cannot otherwise be made good and justifiable but by maintaining an Anticipation in this Text of Moses though few of them speak their minds so fully and explicitely in it as Dr. Prideaux no way inferiour to the best of those who opine the contrary For what weak proofs are they saith he which before were urged God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it therefore he then commanded it to be kept holy by his people And then he addes Moses as Abulensis hath it spake this by way of Anticipation rather to shew the equity of the Commandment then the original thereof So he in the third Section of his Tract De Sabbato Nor are such Anticipations strange in Holy Scripture for besides that Anticipation in the first of Genesis vers 27. allowed by Catharinus as before was said defended by St. Chrysostome on Gen. 2. Origen on Gen. 1. Gregory the Great in his Morals lib. 32. cap. 9. and finally justified by St. Hierom who in his Tract against the Jewes doth affirm as much we find the like Gen 12. 8. Judges c. 2. v. 1. both which are granted without scruple by Dr. Bound the first who set on foot the Sabbatarian Doctrines in the Church of England The like Anticipation is observed in Exod. 16. 32. as appears plainly both by Lyra and Vatablus two right learned men the first a Jew the second eminently studied in the Jewish Antiquities And yet the observation is much elder then either of them made by St. Augustine who lived long before the time of Lyra in his 62. Question on the Book of Exodus and by Calvin who preceded Vatablus in his Comment on that Tract of Scripture These passages and Testimonies I have onely toucht and pointed at as plainly and briefly as I could for the Readers better satisfaction in the present difference referring for the Quotations at large to the History of the Sabbath Part 1. c. 1. n. 2 3. 4. and there he shall be sure to find them From all which laid together it is there concluded that for this passage of the Scripture there is nothing found unto the contrary but that it was set down in that place and time by a plain and neer Anticipation and doth relate unto the time wherein Moses wrote and therefore no sufficient warrant to fetch the institution of the Sabbath from the first beginning Nor could I find when I had Doctor Ryvet under my eye that his Arguments against Gomarus were of weight enough to counter ballance the Authority of so many learned Writers both Jewes and Christians or to weigh down so many Texts of holy Scripture in which the like Anticipations are observed by Origen Hierom Chrysostome and Gregory the Great men of renown for Piety and Learning in the primitive times and by many other learned men in the times succeeding though otherwise of different perswasions in the things of God But Ryvet and the Lord Primate held the same opinion both of them grounding the first institution of the Sabbath on a Positive Law Legem de Sabbato positivam non naturalem agnoscimus are the words of Ryvet p. 173. which is the same with the Lord Primates jus Divinum positivum though in different terms And therefore it can be no marvel if Ryvets Arguments be cried up for vindicating that passage in the second of Genesis in so full a manner that the Lord Primate can see no reason in the earth why any man should make doubt thereof And yet there may be good reason for it though he see it not Now that the seventh day Sabbath was not a part or branch of the Law of Nature which is observed to be a necessary consequent following upon the fixing of the first institution of it in the second of Genesis will evidently appear by the concurrent testimonies of learned men both of the elder and last times It was indeed naturally ingraffed in the heart of man that God was to be worshipped by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Grecian Orator Imprimis venerare Dium said the Latine Poet. And it was also naturally ingraffed in the heart of man not
by Clemens Alexandrinus l. 5. Stromat Eusebius lib. 13. De praeparat Evangel which verses and four others to the same effect he might have found in the History of the Sabbath Part 1. Chap 4. Num. 9. And there he might have found also that those verses had been formerly alledged by a learned Iew named Aristobulus who lived about the time of Ptolemy Philometor King of Egypt The three Poets which I find here cited are Homer Linus and Callimachus the three verses these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But there is nothing in these verses which proves either the Proposition or the Supposition touching the honouring of the seventh day more then any other but onely that the Poets were not ignorant that the works of the Creation were finished on the seventh day as himself acknowledgeth p. 86. Now how these Poets came to know that the Creation of the World was finished on the seventh day is told us by Aristobulus before mentioned namely that the Poets had consulted with the holy Bible and from thence sucked this knowledge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as his own words are And this may be agreeable enough to the times they lived in For Homer who was the oldest of them flourished about 500. years from the death of Moses which hapned in or near the Reign of Solomon the Son of David the most mighty Monarch of the Hebrews at what time the people managed a great trade in Egypt and held good correspondence with those of Tyre from both of which being Sea-faring Nations the Greeks might come unto the knowledge derived to them from the Book of Moses of the Worlds Creation And as for Callimachus who was the latest of the three he lived not till 700. years from the time of Homer which hapned in the Reign of Seleucus Nicanor the first King of Syria of the Macedonian Race or Linage when the Jewes were under the command of one or other of the Princes of Greece as Successors to Alexander the Great in his Eastern Conquests Now for Tertullian on whose Authority the Lord Primate doth most rely we find him cited pag. 84. in two several places each place relating to a several Tract of that learned Writer The first is taken from the first Book and thirteenth Chapter of his Tract inscribed Ad Nationes published first amongst the rest of his Works in the Edition of Rigaltius and not long after in a small volume by it selfe at Geneva Anno 1625. with Gothofred his Notes upon it supposed by some to be but the rude draught of his Apologetick adversus gentes but whether it be so or not we must take it as it lies before us and the words are these viz. Qui solem diem ejus nobis exprobratis agnoscite vicinitatem non longè à Saturno Sabbatis vestris sumus Where first it is to be observed that Tertullian speaks not this of the ancient Gentiles but applies himself to those onely of the times he lived in and therefore no fit Author either to prove the Proposition That the Heathens did attribute some holiness to the seventh day and gave it a peculiar honour above the other days of the week unless he mean it of the Heathens amongst whom he lived much less to justifie the perpetual Tradition of the seventh day which the L Primate will not have to be derived unto them from the Common-wealth of Israel but the Sons of Noah And secondly we may observe that many of the Gentiles at that time when Tertullian wrote that Tract unto them had taken up many of the Jewish customs amongst others the observation of their Sabbath whose riotous feastings on the same might be communicated very readily unto all the rest But this can be no proof at all for the times preceding especially before the Jewes began to intermingle in the Provinces of the Roman Empire and much less serve to fill up that vast vacuity which was between that intermingling and the Sons of Noah Pass we on therefore to the next taken from the Apologetick Chap. 16. to which for the better understanding of the former passage we are referred by Gothofredus Aequè si diem solis saith Tertullian laetitiae indulgemus alia longè ratione quà m religione solis secundo loco ab eis sumus qui diem Saturni otio victui decernunt exorbitantes ipsi à Judaico more quem ignorant Which words of his though the Lord Primate would apply as spoken of because they are spoken to the Gentiles I doubt not but upon examination of the Authors meaning we shall find it otherwise which passage by the Scholiast is thus glossed Quod autem ad diem solis attinet alio ratio est à cultu solis quae nos eum diem qui est à Saturni secundus à Judaeis superstitiosè observatur celebrare persuadet nam illi nesciunt suam legem explosam jam exoletam refrixisse Pamelius gives this note upon it That the Christians celebrated the Sunday ut distinguantur à Judaeis qui diem Saturni id est Sabbatum solenniter etiamnum otio decernunt to the end they might be distinguished from the Jewes who devoted their Sabbath which the Romans call by the name of dies Saturni unto ease and eating What the effect is of the Scholiast and his Paraphrase we shall see anon In the mean time we may observe that Tertullian doth not say secundo loco à vobis sumus that we are in the next place to you by which he might understand the Gentiles but secundo loco ab eis sumus qui diem Saturni otio victui decernunt who dedicate the Saturday unto sloth and luxury which must be understood of the Jewes and of none but them And whereas the Lord Primate layes the strength of his Argument on the last words of his Author viz. Exorbitantes ipsi à Judaico more quem ignorant that is to say that the Gentiles by consuming that day in ease and riot had deviated from the custome of the Jewes of which they were ignorant yet certainly those words are capable of no such construction For certainly the Gentiles by consuming that day in Rest and Riot could not be said to deviate from the custom of the Jewes whose riotous feastings on their Sabbath had made them a reproch to the Greeks and Romans nor could they in any sense be said to be ignorant of the Jewish custome in that kind which Plutarch had before observed and charged upon them In the next place the Scholiast applying the former passage to the Jewes alone and their superstitious observation of their Sabbath or Saturn's-day gives us this gloss on the last words which are now before us viz. Nam illi nesciunt suam legem explosam jam exoletam refrixisse that is to say that they were ignorant that the Law by which their Sabbath had been ordained was repealed abrogated
violate the Law of Moses in keeping the feast of Pentecost on any day of the week whatsoever as it chanced to fall And on the other side the Samaritans being lookt upon by the Jewes as Schismaticks as Hereticks also by Epiphanius and divers other Christian Authors can make no president in this case nor ought to have their practice used for an Argument to consute the practise of the Jewes the more regular people and more observâ—â—â— of the Law and the punctualities or nicities of it then the others were Much like to this was the point in difference between the old Hereticks called Quartodecimani and the Orthodox Christians about the time of keeping Easter which the Quartodecimani kept alwayes on the fourteenth day of the month on what day soever it should happen on which day the Jewes also kept their Passeover the Orthodox Christians keeping it on the Sunday after in memory of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour for which the feast of Easter was first ordained He that shall justifie the Samaritans against the Jewes in the case of Pentecost may as well justifie the Quartodecimani against the Orthodox Christians in the case of Easter And yet to justifie the Samaritans it is after added that they produce the Letter of the Law Levit. 23. 15 16. where the feast of the first fruits otherwise called Pentecost or the feast of Weeks is prescribed to be kept the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which they interpret to be the first day of the week p. 87 88. As if the Jewes did not or could not keep themselves to the Letter of the Law in keeping Pentecost at the end of fifty dayes on what day soever it might fall because the Samaritans pretend to have the Law on their side in that particular Assuredly the Lord Primate did not consider of the absurdities he hath fallen into by thus advocating for the Samaritans and fixing the feast of Pentecost on the morrow after the seventh weekly Sabbath for by this means in stead of a feast of Pentecost to be observed on the fiftieth day from the first account we shall have a feast by what name soever we shall call it to be observed on the forty ninth forty eighth and forty seventh which though they may be called the feasts of Weeks or the feasts of the Law cannot by any means be called the feast of Pentecost For if the sixteenth of Nisan or the feast of first fruits fall upon the Monday the feast of Pentecost improperly so called must be kept upon the forty ninth if on Tuesday on the forty eighth day after and so abating of the number till we come to Saturday on which day if the sixteenth of Nisan should chance to fall as sometimes it must the next day after the seventh Sabbath would be but the forty fourth day and so by the Lord Primates Rule we shall have a feast of Pentecost but once in seven years that is to say when the sixteenth of Nisan did fall upon the first day of the week which is now our Sunday a feast of Weeks or of giving of the Law on the other six Adeo Argumenta ex absurdo petita ineptos habent exitus said Lactantius truely The second proof is borrowed from the testimony of Isychius an old Christian Writer who lived about the year 600. interpreting the morrow after the seventh Sabbath as the Samaritans also do to be the first day of the Week And true it is that Isychius doth so expound it and more then so makes it to be the first intention of the Law-giver that the day from which the fifty dayes were to be reckoned should be the first day of the week which is now our Sunday Planiùs laith he legislator intentionem suam demonstrare volens ab altero die Sabbati memorari praecepit quinquaginta dies dominicum diem proculdubio volens intelligi In which as the Lord Primate dares not justifie his Author for straining the signification of altera dies Sabbati to signifie the Lords day beyond that true meaning of the word which in Moses denoteth no more then the morrow after the Sabbath though produced by him to no other purpose then to prove that point so dare not I justifie the Lord Primate in straining the words of his Author beyond their meaning and telling us that he made no scruple to call the day of Christs resurrection another Sabbath day For if we look upon it well we shall not find that Isychius calls the day of the Resurrection by the name of another Sabbath day but onely telleth us that the Lords day the day on which our Saviour rose was altera dies Sabbati that is to say the first day of the Week or the morrow after the Sabbath understand by Sabbath in this place the feast of unleavened bread from whence the fifty dayes which ended in the feast of Pentecost were to take beginning as will appear by comparing these words with those before viz. ab altero die Sabbati memorari praecepit quinquaginta dies If the Lord Primate can find no better comfort from the Council of Friuli cap. 13. for calling the day of Christs Resurrection by the name of another Sabbath day he will finde but little if not less from those words of Saint Ambrose to which the said Council of Friuli is supposed to allude The Fathers words on which the Lord Primate doth rely to prove that the Lords day was then called a Sabbath as both Isychius and the said Council of Friuli are presumed to do are these that follow viz. Vbi Dominica dies coepit praecellere quâ Dominus resurrexit Sabbatum quod primum erat secundum haberi coepit à primo In which passage he would have us think that the Lords day is called primum Sabbatum or the first Sabbath and the Saturday Sabbatum secundum or the second Sabbath Whereas indeed the meaning of the Father is no more then this that after the Lords day had grown into estimation and got the better as it were of the Jewish Sabbath ubi Dominica dies coepit praecellere c. the Sabbath of the Jewes which was before the first in honour and account began to be lookt upon in the second place the first being given unto the day of the Resurrection And as for the Council of Friuli the Lord Primate doth not say for certain that the Lords day is there called Sabbatum primum and the Jewish Sabbath Sabbatum ultimum but that they are so called if he be not mistaken but if he be mistaken in it why not as well in this as in all the rest the Council of Friuli will conclude no more then Saint Ambrose did to whom it is said to have alluded And on the contrary if the Testimonies here alledged from Isychius the Council and Saint Ambrose may be properly used to prove that the Lords day was then called by the name of the Sabbath the Lord Primate must
have very ill luck in finding no other testimony but that of luxus Sabbatarius in Apollinaris p. 75. to evidence that the Latine word Sabbatum used to denote our Christian Festivities of which in our first Section we have spoken suffiâ—iently Nor is the Lord Primate less zealous to entitle the Lords day to some Divinity then to gratifie the Sabbatarian Brethren by giving it the name of the Sabbath day For this is that which is chiefly aimed at in the inference wherein I would very cheerfully concur in opinion with him but that I am unsatisfied in the grounds of it For if I were satisfied in this that God so ordered the matter that in the celebration of the feast of Weeks the seventh day should purposely be passed over and that solemnity should be kept upon the first I should as easily grant as he that nothing was more likely to be presignified thereby then that under the state of the Gospel the solemnity of the weekly service should be celebrated upon that day p. 90. But being I cannot grant the first for the reasons formerly delivered I cannot on the like or for better reasons admit the second I grant that under the state of the Gospel the solemnities of the weekly service were celebrated on that day and yet I can neither agree with him nor with Thomas Waldensis whom he cites to that purpose that the Lords day did presently succeed Tunc intrasse Dominicam loco ejus in the place thereof as Baptism presently as he saith succeeded in the place of Circumcision For though Saint John Apocal. 1. call the first day of the week by the name of the Lords day as most Christian Writers think he did yet doth it not follow thereupon that it was so called statim post missionem spiritus Sancti as Waldensis would have it immediately on the comming down of the Holy Ghost For not onely in the eighteenth of the Acts which was some yeares after the first Christian Pentecost but in Saint Pauls Epistle to the Corinthians it is given us by no other name then that of the first day of the Week nor did Saint John write the Revelation in which the name of the Lords day is first given unto it till the ninty fourth or ninty fifth year from our Saviours birth which was sixty years or thereabouts from the coming down of the Holy Ghost the first Christian Pentecost And though I am not willing to derogate from the honour of so great a day yet I cannot agree with the Lord Primate That it is in a manner generally acknowledged by all that on that day viz. the first day of the week the famous Pentecost in the second of the Acts was observed For Lorinus in his Commentary on the second of the Acts tells us of some who hold that at the time of our Saviours suffering the Passover fell upon the Thursday and then the Pentecost must of necessity fall upon the Saturday or Jewish Sabbath But seeing it is said to be agreed on generally in a manner onely let it pass for once All which considered I shall and will adhere to my former vote viz. that if the rule be true as I think it is that no sufficient argument can be drawn from a casual fact and that the falling of the Pentecost that year upon the first day of the week be meerly casual the comming of the Holy Ghost upon that day will be no Argument nor Authority to state the first day of the week in the place and honour of the Jewish Sabbath And now before I shut up this Dispute about the Pentecost I shall crave leave to put the Lord Primate in mind of a great mistake which he hath fallen into by putting another sense on Tertullians words about the first Pentecost as observed by the Christians than was intended by that Author For telling us p. 85. That the Gentiles did not celebrate their Saturdays with that solemnity wherewith themselves did their Annual Festivities or the Jews their weekly Sabbaths he bringeth for a proof thereof a passage cited out of the fourteenth Chapter of Tertullian De Idololatria by which it may appear saith be that Tertullian thus speaks unto the Christians who observed 52. Lords days every year whereas all the Annual festivals of the Pagans put together did come short of fifty Ethnicis semel annuus dies quisque festus est tibi octavo quoque die Excerpe singulas solemnitates nationum in ordinem tâ—xe Pentecosten implere non poterunt But clearly Tertullian in thâ—t place neither relates to the 52 Lords dayes nor the number of 50. but onely to the Christian Pentecost which in his time was solemnized 50. dayes together and took up the whole space of time betwixt Easter and Whitsuntide And this appears plainly by the drift of the Author in that place in which he first taxeth the Christians with keeping many of the feasts of the Gentiles whereas the Gentiles kept not any of the feasts of the Christians non Dominicam non Pentecosten no not so much as the Lords day or the feast of Pentecost And then he addes that if they did it onâ—â—y to refresh their spirits or indulge something to the flesh they had more festivals of their own then the Gentiles had The number of the feasts observed by the Gentiles being so short of those which were kept by the Christians of his time ut Pentecosten non potuerint they could not equal the festival of the Pentecost onely much less the Pentecost and the Lords day together And so it is observed by Pamelius in his Notes upon that place where first he telleth us that the Author in that place understands not onely the feast of Pentecost it selfe or the last day of fifty sed etiam tempus illud integrum à die Paschae in Pentecosten but the whole space of time betwixt it and the Passeover taking the word Passover in the largest sense as it comprehends also the feast of unleavened bread But what need Pamelius come in place when it is commonly avowed by the ancient Writers that all the fifty dayes which made up the Pentecost were generally esteemed as holy and kept with as great reverence and solemnity as the Lords day was No fasting upon the one nor upon the other Die dominico jejunium nefas ducimus vel de geniculis adorare eadem immunitate à die Paschae in Pentecosten gaudemus as Tertullian hath it Saint Ambrose more expresly tells us Sermon 61. that every one of those fifty dayes was instar Dominicae and qualis est Dominica in all respects nothing inferiour to the Lords day and in his Comment on Saint Luke c. 17. l. 8. that omnes dies that is to say all those fifty dayes sunt tanquam Dominica Adde hereunto Saint Jeroms testimony Ad Lucinum and then I hope Tertullians words in his Book De Idololatria c. 14. will find another sense and meaning then that which the Lord
Primate hath ascribed unto it To shut up this Dispute in which we have encountred so many errors the Lord Primate tells us very rightly that on the day of the Passeover Christ our Passeover was slain for us that he rested in the grave the whole Sabbath following commonly called the feast of unleavened bread the next day after that the first fruits of the first or Barley Harvest was offered unto God and that from thence the count was taken of the seven Sabbaths and that upon the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which was our Lords day was celebrated the feast of weeks c. Upon which offering of the sheaf of the first fruits of the first or Barley Harvest which hapned at the time of our Saviours suffering on the first day of the Week he gives this note that Christ rose from the dead upon that day and became the first fruits of them that slept many bodies of the Saints that slept arising likewise after him p 91. And for this note he receives great thanks from Dr. Twisse signifying in a letter to him the great satisfaction which he received from him in opening the mystery of the feasts of first fruits to the singular advantage of the Lords day in the time of the Gospel p. 103. But herein Dr. Twisse may be said to be like those men of whom Tully speaks Qui non tantùm ornarent aliquem suis laudibus sed honorarent alienis For without derogating in the least from the honour due to the Lord Primate I cannot say that the honour of the first opening of this mystery doth belong to him it being an observation which I had both read in Books and heard in Sermons many years before 1640. in which or but the year before the Lord Primate wrote this present Letter to Doctor Twisse But because I have but few Books by me and cannot readily call to mind in what Books I read it I shall content my selfe at this present with the gloss of Deodati on the twentieth verse of the fifteenth Chapter of the first Epistle to those of Corinth where it is said that Christ was risen again and was become the first fruits of them that slept premising onely by the way that Diodati began those Annotations in the Italian tongue about the year 1606. to give his Country-men an insight of the darkness wherin they lived which afterwards he polished and perfected in such manner as they are now come into our hands Now Diodati his note is this viz. that Christ is called the first fruits of them that slept not onely because he was the first in the order of the Resurrection which is in Believers as it were a wakening from sleep but also in the quality of a Chief the cause and pledge of it in all his members inseparably united to him by communion of Spirit Rom. 8. 11. even as under the Law in the first fruits offered to God the people had an assurance of Gods blessing upon all their Harvest In a word as some things are defined or to speak more properly described amongst Philosophers rather by what they are not then by what they are so it is easier to declare to whom the first opening of this Mystery of the first fruits if there be any mystery in it doth not of right belong then to whom it doth SECT VI. The Historian charged for following the Greek Editions of Ignatius in his Epistle to the Magnesians An old Latine Translation of Ignatius preferred by the Lord Primate before any of the Greek Editions and the reason why Proofs from the best of the Greek Fathers that the Sabbath was kept as an holy day by the Primitive Christians The contrary not proved by these two testimonies which are alledged from the Council of Laodicea and the words of Gregory the Great The Council of Laodicea prohibits not the keeping of the Sabbath day but the keeping of it after the manner of the Jews by abstaining from all kind of work The Sabbatarians by imposing a restraint from all manner of work on the Lords day are by Pope Gregory the Great made the Preachers of Antichrist The Lord Primate picks a needless quarrel with the Bishop of Ely THe third charge laid by name on the Historian relates unto a passage cited out of the Epistle of Ignatius Ad Magnesianos in which he doth not stand accused either for falsifying the words of his Author or putting a wrong sense upon them but onely for not consulting with an old Latine copy of Ignatius which he never heard of The Historian had then by him no fewer then four Editions of that Father one published by Mastreus the Jesuite both in Greek and Latine another in both languages published by Vedelius a Genevian with his notes upon it a third more ancient then either of them printed at Paris in both languages also but the year I remember not and a fourth in Latine onely but of a very old Print subjoyned unto the works of Dionysius the Areopagite Out of all which compared together he cited that passage out of the Epistle to the Magnesians against which the Lord Primate hath excepted and is this that followeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us not keep the Sabbath in a Jewish manner in sloth and idleness for it is written that he that will not labour shall not eat and in the sweat of thy brows shalt thou eat thy bread But let us keep it after a spiritual fashion not in bodily ease but in the study of the Law not eating meat dressed yesterday or drinking luke-warm drinks or walking out a limited space or setling our delights as they did on dancing but in the contemplation of the works of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And after we have so kept the Sabbath let every one that loveth Christ keep the Lords day festival the Resurrection day the Queen and Empress of all dayes in which our life was raised again and death was overcome by our Lord and Saviour So that we see he would have both dayes observed the Sabbath first though not as would the Ebionites in a Jewish sort and after that the Lords day which he so much magnifieth the better to abate that high esteem which some had cast upon the Sabbath Against this passage and the inference which is raised upon it the Lord Primate first objecteth saying that there is no such thing to be found in an old Latine copy of the works of Ignatius which is to be seen in the Library of Caius Colledge in Cambridge which for many respects he doth prefer before any Greek Edition then extant And in that old Latine copy saith he there is nothing to be found in the Epistle to the Magnesians touching the Sabbath and the Lords day but these words onely viz. Non amplius Sabbatizantes sed secundum Dominicam viventes in qua vita nostra orta est And thereupon he doth infer that all those other words alledged by
followeth in that Statute Be it enacted c. that all the dayes hereafter mentioned shall be kept and commanded to be kept holy dayes and none other that is to say all Sundayes in the year the feasts of the Circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Epiphany of the Purification with all the rest now kept and there named particularly The like ennumeration we have also in the Book of Common-prayer the publick Liturgy of this Church by Law established where we shall find it thus expressed That these shall be accounted holy dayes and none other that is to say all Sundayes in the year the feast of the Circumcision the Epiphany with all the rest before specified in the Act of Parliament Nor doth the Church onely rank the Lords day with other holy dayes in that enumeration of them but hath appointed the same Divine offices the Letany excepted onely to be performed upon the Saints days other festivals as upon the Sundays each of them having his proper Lesson Collect Epistle and Gospel as the Sunday hath and some of them their proper Psalms also which the Sunday hath not And as for the attendance of the people it is required with as much diligence upon the Saints dayes and other Festivals as upon the Lords day by the Laws of this land For so it is enacted in the Statute of the first of Queen Elizabeth viz. That all and every Person and Persons inhabiting within this Realm c. shall diligently and faithfully endeavour themselves to resort to their Parish Church or Chappel c. upon every Sunday and other dayes ordained and used to be kept as holy dayes then and there to abide orderly and soberly during the time of common prayer preaching or other service of God Nor was it only enacted that men should diligently repair to their Church or Chappel as well upon the other holy dayes as upon the Sunday but that the same penalty was imposed on such as without any reasonable let did absent themselves as well upon the one as upon the other For so it follows in that Statute viz. That every person so offending shall not alone be subject unto the censures of the Church but shall forfeit for every such offence twelve pence to be levied to the use of the poor of the same parish by the Church-wardens of the same c. Which grounds thus laid the Lord Primates Argument from the Book of Homilies will be easily answered For if the weight of his argument lie in the first words cited out of the Homily that in the fourth Commandment God hath given express charge to all men that upon the Sabbath day which is now our Sunday c. and therefore that the Sunday or Lords day may be called a Sabbath this will prove nothing but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a contention about words and not within the compass of the Homily neither it being declared in the former words of the same Homily that we keep now the first day which is our Sunday and make that our Sabbath that is our day of rest So that the destinating of the Sunday or first day of the week for the day of rest makes it at the most but a tanquam to the Sabbath neither entituling it to the name nor prerogatives of it But if the weight of the Argument lie in these words viz. That men upon the Sunday or Lords day should cease from all weekly and work-day labour c. and also give themselves wholly to Heavenly exercises of Gods true Religion and service For the first part thereof touching the forbearing of all weekly and work-day labour is no otherwise to be understood but of such labours as are prohibited by the Laws of the Realm or otherwise may prove an avocation from Gods publick service at the times appointed for the same And as for the last words touching mens giving of themselves wholly to heavenly exercises of Gods true Religion and service they are of a far differing meaning from the Article of the Church of Ireland for which the Lord Primate chiefly stickleth in which it is declared that the first day of the week which is the Lords day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God For certainly there is a great difference between the dedicating of a day wholly to the service of God as in the Articles of Ireland and the giving of our selves wholly to heavenly exercises as in the Homilies of England the one implying that no part of the day is to be otherwise spent then in the service of God no place being left either for necessary business or for lawful pleasure the other that in the Acts and times of publick worship we should give our selves wholly that is our whole selves souls and bodies to the performance of those heavenly exercises which are then required It had before been told us in this very Homily that nothing in the fourth Commandment was to be retained but what was found appertaining to the Law of Nature but it appertaineth not to the Law of Nature either that one day in seven should be set apart for Religious worship or that this one day wholly be so imployed vel quod per totam diem abstineatur ab operibus servilibus as Tostatus hath it or that there be an absolute cessation during the whole day from all servile works By consequence there is no more required of us by the Law of Nature in this case but that at the times appointed for Gods publick worship we wholly sequester our selves yea our very thoughts from all worldly business fixing our souls and all the faculties thereof upon that great and weighty business which we are in hand with That does indeed appertain to the Law of Nature Naturale est quod dum Deum colimus ab aliis abstineamus as Tostatus hath it and to this point we have been trained in the Schools of Piety Orantis est nihil nisi coelestia cogitare as was said before So that the meaning of the Homily in that place will be onely this that for those times which are appointed by the Church for the assembly of Gods people we should lay by our daily business and all worldly thoughts and wholly give our selves to the heavenly exercises of Gods true Religion and service as in the Homily we are willed And that this only was the meaning of the Homily in that place may be convincingly concluded from the reasons following First from the improbability that the Authors of that Homily should propound a Doctrine so evidently contrary to the Declaration of the Act of Parliament in the 5 6. of Edw. 6. which was then in force and unto which not onely the Commons and the Lords Temporal but even the Lords Spiritual and the King himselfe did most unanimously concur or that the Queen should authorize a Doctrin in the Book of Homilies as by ratifying the 39. Articles she must be supposed to have done
new Testament quodque ex illa ipsa Doctrina Catholici Patres veteres Episcopi collegerint and had been thence collected by the Orthodox Fathers and ancient Bishops And though H. B. of Friday-street in his seditious Sermon preached on the fifth of November Anno 1636. and the Author of the Book entituled The Liberty of Prophecy published in the year 1647. endevour to make them of no reckoning yet was King James a learned and well studied Prince perswaded otherwise then so And thereupon in some Directions sent by him to the Vice-Chancellor and other of the Heads of the University of Oxford bearing date January 18. An. 1616. it was advised and required That young Students in Divinity be directed to study such Books as be most agreeable in Doctrine and Discipline to the Church of England and excited to bestow their time in the Fathers and Councils School-men Histories and Controversies and not to insist too long upon Compendiums and Abbreviators making them the grounds of their study in Divinity By which we see that the first place is given to Fathers and Councils as they whose writings and decrees were thought to have been most agreeable to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England The like may be said also of the usages and customes of the Primitive times which the first Reformers of this Church had a principal care of it being asfirmed in the Act of Parliament 2. 3. of Edw. 6. by which the first Liturgy of that Kings time was confirmed and ratified that the Compilers of the same not onely had an eye to the most pure sincere Christian Religion taught in the Scriptures but also a respect to the usages in the Primitive Church They had not else retained so many of the ancient Ceremonies as bowing at the name of Jesus kneeling at the Communion the Cross in Baptism standing up at the Creed and Gospels praying toward the East c. besides the ancient Festivals of the Saints and Martyrs who have their place and distinct offices in the present Liturgy And as for the neighbouring Protestant and Reformed Churches although she differ from them in her Polity and form of government yet did she never authorize any publick Doctrine which might have proved a scandal to them in the condemning of those Recreations works of labour and other matters of that nature which the general practice of those Churches both approve and tolerate And therefore if it can be proved that the spending of the whole Lords day or the Lords day wholly in Religious exercises accompanied as needs it must be with a restraint from necessary labour and lawful pleasures be contrary to the Doctrine of the ancient Fathers the usages and customes of the Primitive times and to the general practice of the Protestant and Reformed Churches I doubt not but it will appear to all equal and indifferent men that there is no such mind and meaning in the Book of Homilies or in them that made it as the Lord Primate hath been pleas'd to put upon it or to gather from it And first beginning with the Fathers Councils and the Usages of the Primitive Church it is not to be found that ever they required that the whole day should be employed in Gods publick service without permission of such necessary business and honest recreations as mens occasions might require or invite them to It was ordained indeed by the Council of Laodicea spoken of before that Christians on the Lords day should give themselves to ease and rest otiari is the word in Latine which possibly may be meant also of a rest from labour but it is qualified with a si modo possint if it may stand with the conveniences of their Affairs and the condition which they lived in And so the Canon is expounded by Zonaras in his gloss upon it It is appointed saith he by this Canon that none abstain from labour on the Sabbath day which plainly was a Jewish custome and an Anathema laid on those who offended herein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But they are willing to rest from labour on the Lords day in honour of the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour But here we must observe that the Canon addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in case they may For by the Civil Law it is precisely ordered that every man shall rest that day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Hindes and Husbandmen excepted his reason is the very same with that before expressed in the Emperours Edict 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. for unto them it is permitted to work and travel on that day because perhaps if they neglect it they may not find another day so fit and serviceable for their occasions Besides which it is to be considered that many Christians of those times were servants unto Heathen Masters or otherwise obnoxious to the power of those under whom they lived and therefore could not on the Lords day abstain from any manner of work further then it might stand with the will and pleasure of those Superiours to whom the Lord had made them subject A Christian servant living under the command of an Heathen Master might otherwise neglect this Masters business one whole day in seven and plead the Canon of this Council for his justification which whether it would have saved him from correction or the Church from scandal I leave to be considered by all sober and unbiassed men All that the Church required of her conformable Children during the first 300. years was onely to attend the publick ministration or morning-service of the day leaving them to dispose of the rest thereof at their will and pleasure the very toil of Husbandry not being prohibited or restrained for some ages following For proof whereof take these words of Beza a man of great credit and esteem not onely with our English Presbyterians but the Lord Primate himself Vt autem Christiani eo die à suis quotidianis laboribus abstinerent praeter id temporis quod in coetu ponebatur id neque illis Apostolicis temporibus mandatum neque prius fuit observatum quam id à Christianis Imperatoribus nequis à rerum sacrarum meditatione abstraheretur quidem non ita praecise observatum That Christians ought saith he to abstain that day from their labour except that part alone which was appointed for the meetings of the Congregation was never either commanded in the Apostles times nor otherwise observed in the Church until such time that so it was enjoyned by Christian Emperours to the end the people might not be diverted from meditating on holy matters nor was it then so strictly kept as it was enjoyned Now the first Christian Emperour was the famous and renowned Constantine who was the first that established the Lords day which formerly had stood on no other ground then the Authority of the Church and consent of Gods people by Imperial Edicts so by the like Imperial Edict he restrained
some labours on that day and permitted others The Judges in that age used to hold their Courts of Judicature even in the hours and times of Gods publick service by which means many were necessitated to absent themselves from the publick meetings of the Church and neglect their duties unto God Many of the Artificers also which dwelt in great Towns and populous Cities whose penny was more precious with them then their Pater noster used to do the like For remedy whereof it was ordained by the Emperours Edict Vt omnes Judices urbanaeque plebes cunctarum Artium officia venerabili die Solis quiescant But on the other side it was permitted unto those who lived in Countrey Villages to attend their Husbandry because it hapneth many times Ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis vineae scrobibus mandentur that no day is more fit then that for sowing Corn and for planting Vines And then he gives this reason for it Ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas coelesti provisione concessa lest otherwise by neglect of convenient seasons they lose those benefits which their God had bestowed upon them And if the toyles of Husbandry were not onely permitted upon that day but in a manner seemed to be enjoyned by the former Edict no question but such worldly businesses as did not take men off from their attendance at the times of the ministration might be better suffered And so Saint Hierom doth inform us of Paula a devout and religious Lady that she caused her Maidens and other Women which belonged to her to repair diligently to the Church on the Lords day but so that after their return operi distributo instabant vel sibi vel caeteris vestimenta faciebant they betook themselves unto their tasks in making garments either for themselves or others Nor doth the Father censure or reprove her for it as certainly he would have done had any such Doctrine been then taught and countenanced in the Church of Christ touching the spending of the whole day or the Lords day wholly in religious exercises It appears also by S. Chrysoft that after the Divine duties of the day were finished which held but 1 or 2 hours in the morning unam aut duas hor as ex die integro as it is in Origen the people were required only to spend some time in meditation at their coming home 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and were then suffered to pursue the works of their several callings Saint Austine in his Tract De rectitudine Catholicae Conversationis adviseth us to be attent and silent all the time of Divine service not telling tales nor falling into jarres and quarrels as being to answer such of us as offend therein Dum nec ipse verbum Dei audit nec alios audire permittit as neither hearkning to the word of God our selves nor permitting others But for the residue of the day he left it in the same estate in which he found it to be disposed of by Gods people according as their several necessities and occasions required of them Thus have we seen as well the Doctrine as the Practise of the African and Eastern Churches Let us now turn our selves towards the West and we shall find that some in France had begun to Judaize so far as to impose many of those restraints on the Lords day which the Jewes had put upon their Sabbath viz. that none should travel on the Lords day with Waines or Horses or dress Meat or make clean the House or meddle with any manner of domestick business Which being taken into consideration by the third Council of Orleance Anno 540. it was there ordained that since those prohibitions did savour more of the Jew then of the Christian Die Dominico quod ante licuit licere that therefore whatsoever had formerly been lawful on that day should be lawful still Yet so that for the satisfaction and contentment of those troublesome Spirits who would not otherwise submit to the Determinations of the Council it was thought convenient that men should rest that day from Husbandry and the Vintage from sowing reaping hedging and such servile works quo facilius ad Ecclesiam venientes orationis gratia vacent that so they might have better leisure to go unto the Church and there say their prayers This as it was the first restraint from Husbandry on the Lords day which had been made by the Canons of the Church so was it seconded by a Canon made in the Synod of Mascon in the 24. year of Ganthram King of the Burgundians Anno 588. and followed by another in the Council of Auxerre in France under Clotaire the second about two years after In both of which it was decreed Non licere die dominico boves jungere vel alia opera exercere that no man should be suffered to yoke his Oxen or do any manner of work upon the Sunday But then we must observe withall that these Councils acted onely by their own Authority not charging those restraints on God or on his Commandment it being positively declared by the Canon of the Council of Mascon that the Lord did not exact it of us that we should celebrate this day in a corporal abstinence or rest from labour who onely looks that we do yield obedience to his holy will by which contemning earthly things he may conduct us to the Heaven of his infinite mercy Which Declaration notwithstanding the Doctrine of it selfe was so offensive to Pope Gregory the first that partly to encounter with some Christians of the Eastern Countries who still observed the Jewish Sabbath and partly to prevent the further spreading of these restraints in the Western parts which made men seem to Judaize on the Lords day also he pronounced such as were active in promoting the practise and opinion of either side to be the Preachers of Antichrist qui veniens diem Sabbati diem Dominicum ab omni opere faciet custodiri as his own words are Less forward were the Eastern Churches in imposing any of these new restraints upon the people then the Western were the toiles of Husbandry it self not being prohibited in the Eastern parts of the Empire til the time of Leo Philosophus he began his Government Anno 886. who grounding himself on some command of the holy Ghost and the Lords Apostles which neither he nor any body else could ever finde decreed by his Imperial Edict ut omnes in die sacro c. à labore vacent Neque Agricolae c. that all men whatsoever as well the Husbandman as others should on the Lords day rest from all manner of work So long it was before any such general restraints were laid upon Gods people either in the West or East In all which time we neither find that the setting of some whole day apart for Gods solemn worship was lookt upon as Juris Divini naturalis which is the Lord Primates own opinion or
that the first day of the Week which is the Lords day was wholly to be dedicated to the service of God and therefore that men should be bound to rest therein from their common and daily business which is the Doctrine of the Articles of the Church of Ireland Next let us look upon the Protestant Lutheran Churches amongst whom though restraints from labour formerly imposed by many Canons Laws and Imperial Edicts do remain in force yet they indulge unto themselves all honest and lawful recreations and spare not to travel on that day as well as upon any other as their necessities or pleasures give occasion for it If they repair unto the Church and give their diligent attendance on Gods publick service there is no more expected of them they may dispose of all the rest of the day in their own affairs and follow all such businesses from which they are not barred by the Laws of the several Countries in which they live without being called to an account or censured for it And as for the Reformed or Calvinian Churches they give themselves more liberty on that day then the Lutherans doe few of them having any Divine offices until now of late in the Afternoons as neither had the Primitive Christians till toward the later end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth Century In those of the Palatinate the Gentlemen betake themselves in the Afternoon of the Lords day to Hawking and Hunting according as the season of the year is fit for either or spend it in taking the Air visiting their Friends or whatsoever else shall seem pleasing unto them as doth the Husbandman in looking over his grounds ordering his cattel or following of such Recreations as are most agreeable to his nature and education And so it stood in the year 1612. at what time the Lady Elizabeth daughter to King James and wife to Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine came first into that Countrey whose having Divine Service every afternoon in her Chappel or Closet officiated by her own Chaplains according to the Liturgy of the Church of England might give some hint to the Prince her Husband to cause the like religious offices to be performed in some part of the Afternoon in the City of Heidelberg and after by degrees in other the Cities and towns of his Dominions In the Netherlands they have not onely practice but a Canon for it it being thus decreed by the Synod of Dort Anno 1574. Publicae vespertinae preces non sunt introducendae ubi non sunt introductae ubi sunt tollantur that is to say That in such Churches where publick Evening prayer had not been admitted it should continue as it was and where they were admitted they should be put down And if they had no Evening Prayers there is no question to be made but that they had their Evening Pastimes and that the Afternoon was spent in such employments as were most suitable to the condition of each several man And so it stood till the last Synod of Dort Anno 1618. in which it was ordained that Catechism-Lectures should be read in their Churches on Sundayes in the Afternoon the Minister not to be deterred from doing his duty propter Auditorum infrequentiam though possibly at the first he might have few Auditors and that the Civil Magistrate should be implored ut omnia opera servilia quotidiana c. That all servile works and other prophanations of that day might be restrained quibus tempus pomeridianum maxime in pagis plerumque transique soleret wherewith the Afternoon chiefly in smaller Towns and Villages had before been spent that so they might repair to the Catechizing For both before that time and since they held their Fairs and Markets their Kirk-masses as they used to call them as well upon the Lords day as on any other and those as well frequented in the Afternoon as were the Churches in the forenoon France and even in Geneva it self the New Rome of the Calvinian party all honest Exercises shooting in peeces long-bows cross-bows c. are used on the Sunday and that in the morning both before and after Sermon neither do the Ministers find fault therewith so they hinder not from hearing of the Word at the time appointed And as for the Churches of the Switzers Zuinglius avoweth it to be lawful Die dominico peractis sacris laboribus incumbere On the Lords day after the end of Divine Service for any man to follow and pursue his labours as commonly we do saith he in the time of Harvest And possible enough it is that the pure Kirk of Scotland might have thought so too the Ministers thereof being very inclinable to the Doctrine of Zuinglius and the practise of the Helvetian Churches which they had readily taken into their Confession Anno 1561 but that they were resolved not to keep those holy dayes which in those Churches are allowed of all Holy dayes but the Lords day onely having been formerly put down by their Book of Discipline Nor could I ever learn from any of my Acquaintance of that Kingdom but that men followed their necessary businesses and honest recreations on the Lords day till by commerce and correspondence with the Puritan or Presbyterian party here in England the Sabbatarian Doctrines began by little and little to get ground amongst them On all which premises I conclude that the Authors of that Homily had neither any mind or meaning to contradict the Ancient Fathers the usages and customes of the Primitive times in the general practice of the Protestant and Reformed Churches and therefore that the words of the Homily are not to be understood in any such sense as he puts upon them The Doctrine of the Church of England is clear and uniform every way consonant to it self not to be bowed to a compliance with the Irish Articles of the year 1615. and much less with the judgement and opinion of one single person in 640. No Sophistry in all this but good Topical Arguments and such as may be more easily contemned then answered And so much toward the exonerating of the fourth charge the most material of them all in which the Historian stands accused for opposing the Doctrine of this Church in the Book of Homilies to which he had formerly subscribed SECT IX The Historian charged for mistaking the affairs of Ireland in two particulars which he ingenuously confesseth The great cunning of the Puritan faction in effecting their desires in the Convocation of Dublin Anno 1615. which they could not compass here in England The Historian accused for shamelesness c. for the second mistake though onely in a point of Circumstance the Articles of Ireland being called in and those of England received in the place thereof by the Convocation though not by Parliament The Lord Primates narrative of this business he finds himself surprized in passing the Canon and makes use of a sorry shift to salve
Verdict of the Church of England the Lords day had obtained such a pitch of credit as nothing more could be left to the Church of Ireland in their Articles afterward to adde unto it But against this Judgment I appeal and must reverse the same by Writ of Error For first although the Lords day had obtained such a pitch of credit in the Realm of England as is here affirmed it was obtained rather by the practises of the Sabbatarians who were instant in season and out of season to promote the Cause then by any countenance given unto it by the Church and the Rulers of it And secondly if any such Verdict had been given it was not given by any Jury which was legally summoned or trusted by the Church to act any thing in that particular And then the Foreman of this Jury must be Doctor Bound Master Greenham Master Perkins Doctor Lewis Bayley Master Dod Master Clever Doctor Gouge Master Whateley Doctor Sibs Doctor Preston Master Bifield Doctor Twisse and Master Ley must make up the Pannel the five Smectymnuans and he that pulled down the Cross in Saint Pauls Church-yard standing by in a readiness to put in for the Tales as occasion served Unless the Verdict had been given by these or such as these the Lords day never had attained such a pitch of credit as is here supposed but how a Verdict so given in may be affirmed to be a Verdict of the Church of England I am yet to seek So that except there had been something left to the Church of Ireland in their Articles to adde unto it The Sabbatarian Brethren would have found small comfort from any Verdict given on their side by the Church of England The Church of England differs as much in this point from the Articles of Ireland as the Lord Primate differeth in it from the Church of England The Lord Primate sets it down for a Proposition that the setting apart of one day in seven for Gods solemn worship is juris Divini Positivi recorded in the fourth Commandment p. 105. But the Lords Spiritual the most eminent Representers of the Church of England declared in the Parliament in the 5 6. of Edw. 6. That there is no certain time or definite number of dayes prescribed in holy Scripture but the appointment both of the time and also of the number of dayes is left by the Authority of Gods word to the liberty of Christs Church to be determined and assigned orderly in every Countrey by the discretion of the Rulers and Ministers thereof as they shall judge most expedient to the setting forth Gods glory and edification of their people The Church of England hath declared in the Homily of the time and place of prayer that the Lords day was instituted by the Authority of the Church and the consent of godly Christian people after Christs Ascension But the Lord Primate doth entitle it unto Christ himself and to that end alledgeth a passage out of the Homily De Semente ascribed but ascribed falsly unto S. Athanasius viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The proper meaning of which words hath been shewen already in the first Section of this Treatise The Lord Primate in conformity to the Articles of the Church of Ireland affirms for certain that the whole day must be set apart for Gods solemn worship But in the Church of England there is liberty given upon that day not onely for honest Recreations but also for such necessary works of labour as are not or have not been restrained by the Laws of the Land Which makes the difference in this case between the Lord Primate and the Church of England to be irreconcilable And here I would have left the Lord Primates Letter writ to his Honourable Friend the Contents whereof have been the sole Subject of the present Section but that the Lord Primate will not so part with the Historian he must needs bestow a dash upon him before he leaves him telling his Honourable Friend How little credit the Historian deserves in his Geography when he brings news of the remote parts of the world that tells so many untruths of things so lately and so publickly acted in his neighbour Nation This I must needs say comes in very unhandsomely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dictum at the best and savours little of that moderation humility and meekness of Spirit for which Doctor Bernard hath so fam'd him not onely in this present Treatise but his Funeral Sermon But let this pass cum caeteris erroribus without more ado I have some other game in chase to which now I hasten SECT X. Seven Points of Doctrine in which the Lord Primate differeth from the Church of England The Lord Primates judgment in the point of Episcopacy and the ordination of Ministers beyond the Seas That Bishops and Presbyters did differ Ordine and not onely Gradu proved by three passages in the Book of Consecration and by the different forms of the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons used in the said Book The form and manner of making Bishops Priests and Deacons expresly regulated by the Canons of the fourth Council of Carthage The Ordination of Presbyters by Presbyters declared unlawful by the Rules of the Primitive Church The Universal Redemption of Mankind by the blood of Christ maintained by the Church of England but denied by the Lord Primate not constant to himselfe in his own opinion A Real presence of Christ in the Sacrament maintained by the Church of England and affirmed by the most eminent Prelates of it but both denied and opposed by the Lord Primate in his Answer to the Jesuites challenge That the Priest hath power to forgive sins proved by three several passages out of the Book of Common-Prayer The meaning of the two first passages subverted by the Lord Primates Gloss or Descant on them but no notice taken by him of the last which is most material That the Priest forgiveth sins either Declarativè or Optativè better approved by the Lord Primate neither of which come up close to the Church of England and the reason why The Church of England holdeth that the Priect forgiveth sins Authoritativè by a delegated not a soveraign power and that she so holdeth is affirmed by some learned men of the Church of Rome The benefit of Absolution from the hands of the Priest humbly desired and received by Doctor Reynolds at the time of his death The Church of England maintains a local Descent and the proof thereof The Church not altered in her judgement since the first making of that Article Anno 1552. as some men imagine The Lord Primate goes a different way from the Church of England and the great pains by him taken to make it good A transition to the nine Articles of Lambeth THe difference between the Church of England and the Lord Primate in the point of the Sabbath we have shewed already and well it were if he differed from the Church of England
consent at least of the Metropolitan all other Bishops of the Province consenting to it and giving their assistance at that sacred Ceremony if not otherwise hindered And though this fourth Council of Carthage was but National onely yet was it universally received and that too in a very short time over all the Church and made the standing Rule by which the consecrating of Bishops and the ordaining of Priests and Deacons was to be officiated A Rule so punctually followed by the Church of England that it seemeth to be rather of the Carthaginian then the Roman party and more to savour of the Primitive then the popish Ordinals And to this Rule the Church did tie it selfe so strictly concerning the consecration of an Arch Bishop or Bishop that though a Bishop in some cases might ordain a Priest or Presbyter without the presence and co-operation of other Presbyters yet was there no case whatsoever in which it was lawful for one or more Priests or Presbyters to ordain another And so it was adjudged in the case of Coluthus whose ordinations were therfore declared void of no effect because he was no Bishop but a Presbyter onely as is affirmed by Athanasius in Apol. 2. Which as it clearly contradicted the Lord Primates judgement in the point of the lawfulness of the Ordination of Presbyters by Presbyters without the concurrence of a Bishop so doth it justifie the Church of England against him in the point of Episcopacy which she affirms and he denies to be a distinct Order from that of the Priest or Presbyter But nothing doth more fully manifest the Lord Primates judgement in this particular and consequently his dissent therein from the Church of England then his publishing the judgement and opinion of Doctor Reynolds in this point which he so far enlarged and explicated that Doctor Bernard reckoneth it amongst his works The title of the Book runs thus The judgement of Doctor Reynolds touching the Original of Episcopacy more largely confirmed out of Antiquity by James Arch-Bishop of Armagh The Doctors judgement is as followeth viz. When Elders were ordained by the Apostles in every Church through every City to feed the flock of Christ whereof the Holy Ghost had made them overseers they to the intent they might the better do it by common Counsel and consent did use to assemble themselves and meet together In which meetings for the more orderly handling and concluding of things pertaining to their charge they chose one amongst them to be the President of their Company and Moderator of their Actions As in the Church of Ephesus though it had sundry Elders and Pastors to guide it yet amongst those sundry was there one chief whom our Saviour calleth the Angel of the Church and writeth that to him which by him the rest should know And this is he whom afterwards in the Primitive Church the Fathers called Bishop So far the words of Dr. Reynolds then which there nothing can be said more contrary to the first institution nor more derogatory to the Order and Estate of Bishops And if the Lord Primate did magnifie his own office no better in other things then he did in publishing this piece Doctor Bernard might have spared that part of the character which he gives us of him for so doing p. 151. For by this magnifying of his Office he made himself no better then the President of the Presbyters within his Diocess the chief Priest or Arch-Priest we may fitly call him though possibly in regard of his personal abilities he might be suffered to enjoy that presidency for term of life such a perpetual Presidency as Calvin was possessed of when he reigned in Geneva and sate as Pope over all the Churches of his Platform and was enjoyed by Beza many years after his decease till Danaeus thinking himself as good a man as the best made a party against him and set him quite beside the Cushion Since which time that Presidency hath continued no longer in any one man then from Session to Session from one Classical meeting to another loco libertatis erat quod eligi coeperunt in the words of Tacitus Which fate would questionless befall all the Bishops in Christendom if their Presbyters were once possessed with this fansie that the Bishop was but a Creature of their own making as is affirmed by Doctor Reynolds or that they and their Bishop did not differ Ordine but Gradu onely which the Lord Primate to the great magnifying of his office hath declared to be his own constant opinion 3. In the next place the Church of England doth maintain an Universal Redemption of all mankind by the death and sufferings of our Saviour This first proved by that passage in the publick Catechism by which the party catechized is taught to believe in God the Son who redeemed him and all mankind secondly by that clause in the Letany viz. O God the Son Redeemer of the world have mercy upon us c. thirdly by the prayer of consecrating the Elements of Bread and Wine viz. Almighty God our Heavenly Father which of thy tender mercy didst give thine onely Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our Redemption who made there by his own oblation of himself once offered a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD c. Nor was it without some such meaning that she selected those words of our Saviour in Saint Johns Gospel viz. God so loved the World that he gave his onely begotten Son c. to be used in the preparation to the Communion as she reiterated some others viz. O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world incorporated into the Gloria in Excelsis at the end thereof But in this point the Lord Primate is of a contrary judgement to the Church of England For as he seems not to like their opinion who contract the riches of Christs satisfaction into too narrow a room as if none had any interess therein but such as were elected before the foundation of the world so he declareth his dislike of the other extreme as he is pleas'd to call it by which the benefit of this satisfaction is extended to the Redemption of all mankind The one extremity saith he extends the benefit of Christs satisfaction so far ut reconciliationem cum Deo peccatorum Remissionem singulis impetraverit as to obtain a Reconciliation with God and a Remission of sins for all men at his merciful hands p. 21. Which though they are the words of the Remonstrants at the Conference at the Hague Anno 1611. and are by him reckoned for untrue yet do they naturally result from the Doctrine of Universal Redemption which is maintained in the Church of England Not that all Mankind is so perfectly reconciled to Almighty God as to be really and actually discharged from all their sins before they actually believe which the Lord Primate makes to be
the meaning and effect of that extremity as he calls it p. 2. but that they are so far reconciled unto him as to be capable of the Remission of their sins in case they do not want that faith in their common Saviour which is required thereunto And here I should have left this point but that I must first desire Dr. Bernard to reconcile these two passages which I find in the Lord Primates Letter of the year 1617. in one of which he seems to dislike of their opinion who contract the Riches of Christs satisfaction into too narrow a room as if none had any kind of interess therein but such as were elected before the foundation of the world as before was said And in the other he declares that he is well assured that our Saviour hath obtained at the hands of his Father Reconciliation and forgiveness of sins not for the Reprobate but Elect onely p. 21. Let Dr. Bernard reconcile these so different passages erit mihi magnus Apollo in the Poets language If the Lord Primate did subscribe the Articles of the Church of England as Doctor Bernard saies he did p. 118. I know who may be better blam'd for breaking his subscription then he whom the Lord Primate hath accused for it p. 110. For in the second Article of the Church of England it is said expresly that Christ suffered was crucified dead and buried to reconcile his Father to us and to be a sacrifice not onely for original guilt but also for the actual sins of men In which as well the sacrifice as the effect and fruit thereof which is the Reconciliation of mankind to God the Father is delivered in general terms without any restriction put upon them neither the Sacrifice nor the Reconciliation being restrained to this man or that man some certain quidams of their own whom they pass commonly by the name of Gods Elect. The sacrifice being made for the sins of men of men indefinitely without limitation is not to be confined to some few men onely as the general current of the Calvinian Divines have been pleased to make it as if Christ really and intentionally died for none but them 4. The Church of England doth maintain that Christ is truly and really present in the Sacrament of his most precious body and blood Which Doctrine of a Real presence is first concluded from the words of the Distribution retained in the first Liturgy of King Edward the sixth and formerly prescribed to be used in the ancient Missals viz. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body and Soul unto life everlasting The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ c. Which words being thought by some precise and scrupulous persons to incline too much towards Transubstantiation and therefore not unfit to justifie a real presence were quite omitted in the second Liturgy of that King Anno 1552. wheâ— Dudly of Northumberland who favoured the Calvinian party carried all before him the void place being filled up with thâ— words of the Participation viz. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee c. Take and drink this in remembrance c. An alteration not well grounded and of short continuance For when that Book was brought under a review in the first year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth those words of the Distribution were reâ—â—ored to their former place and followed by those of the Participation as it still continueth It is proved secondly by that passage in the publick Catechisme in which the Party catechized is taught to say that the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received of the faithful in the Lords Supper Now if a Question should be made what the Church means by verily and indeed in the former passage it must be answered that she means that Christ is truly and really present in that blessed Sacrament as before was said the words being rendered thus in the Latine Translation viz. Corpus sanguis Domini quae vere realiter exhibentur c. Verily and indeed as the English hath it the same with vere and realiter that is to say truly and really as it is in the Latine And thirdly this appears to be the Doctrine of this Church by the most Orthodox and Learned Prelates of the same the words of three of which only I shall now produce that out of the mouths of two or three witnesses the truth hereof may be established God forbid saith Bishop Bilson we should deny that the flesh and blood of Christ are truly present and truly received of the faithful at the Lords Table It is the Doctrine that we teach others and comfort our selves withal Secondly Bishop Morton as great an enemy to the Superstitions of the Romish Mass as ever wrote against it doth expresly say That the question is not concerning a real presence which Protestants as their own Jesuites witness do also profess Fortunatus a Protestant holding that Christ is in the Sacrament most really verissime realissimeque as his own words are But none more positively and clearly then Doctor Lancelor Andrews then Lord Bishop of Chichester who in his Apology written in Answer to Cardinal Bellarmin thus declares himself as one and one of the chief Members of the Church of England viz. Praesentiam credimus non minus quam vos veram de modo praesentiae nil temere definimus We acknowledge saith he a presence as true and real as you do but we determine nothing rashly of the manner of it And in his Answer to the eighteenth Chapter of Cardinal Perrons Reply he thus speaks of Zuinglius It is well known saith he that Zuinglius to avoid Est in these words hoc est Corpus meum in the Church of Romes sense fell to be all for significat and nothing for est at all And whatsoever went farther then significat he took to savour of the Carnal presence For which if the Cardinal mislike him so do we a further declaration of the true sense and meaning of the Church in this particular we have from Mr. Alexander Noel Dean of Saint Pauls and Prolocutor of the Convocation in the year 1562. when the Articles or Confession of this Church were approved and ratified who in his Catechism publickly allowed to be taught in all the Grammar Schools of this Realm thus resolves the point The Question is Coelestis pars ab omni sensu externo longe disjuncta quaenam est That is to say what is the Heavenly or Spiritual part of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper To which the party Catechised returns this Answer Corpus sanguis Christi quae fidelibus in Coena Dominica praebentur ab illisque accipiuntur comeduntur bibuntur coelesti tantum spirituali modo vere tamen atque reipsa id est the Heavenly or Spiritual part is the Body and Blood of Christ which are given to the faithful in the Lords
Supper and are taken eaten and drank by them which though it be onely in an Heavenly and Spiritual manner yet are they both given and taken truly and really or in very deed by Gods faithful people By which it seems that it is agreed on on both sides that is to say the Church of England and the Church of Rome that there is a true and real presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist the disagreement being onely in the modus Praesentiae But on the contrary the Lord Primate in his Answer to the Jesuits challenge hath written one whole Chapter against the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament In which though he would seem to aim at the Church of Rome though by that Church not onely the reall presence of Christ in the Sacrament but the corporal eating of his body is maintained and taught yet doth he strike obliquely and on the by on the Church of England All that he doth allow concerning the real presence is no more then this viz. That in the receiving of the blessed Sacrament we are to distinguish between the outward and thâ— inward Action of the Communicant In the outward wiâ—â— our bodily mouth we receive really the visible elements of Bread and Wine in the inward we do by faith really receive the Body and Blood of our Lord that is to say we are truely and indeed made partakers of Christ crucified to the spiritual strengthning of our inward man Which is no more then any Calvinist in the pack which either do not understand or wilfully oppose the Doctrines of the Church of England will stick to say 5. The Church of England teacheth that the Priest hath power to forgive sins as may be easily proved by three several Arguments not very easie to be answered The first is from those solemn words used in the Ordination of the Priest or Presbyter that is to say Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye forgive they are forgiven and whose sins ye retain they are retained Which were a gross prophanation of the words of our Lord and Saviour and a meer mockery of the Priest if no such power were given unto him as is there affirmed The second Argument is taken from one of the Exhortations before the Communion where we find it thus viz. And because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy Communion but with a full trust in Gods mercy and with a quiet conscience therefore if there be any of you which by the means aforesaid cannot quiet his own Conscience but requireth further comfort or counsel then let him come to me or to some other discreet and learned Minister of Gods word and open his grief that he may receive such ghostly counsel advice and comfort as his conscience may be relieved and that by the Ministry of Gods word he may receive comfort and the benefit of absolution to the quieting of his conscience and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness The third and most material proof we have in the form prescribed for the visitation of the sick In which it is required that after the sick person hath made a confession of his faith and profest himselfe to be in charity with all men he shall then make a special confession if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter And then it followeth that after such confession the Minister shall absolve him in this manner viz. Our Lord Jesus Christ who hath left power to his Church to absolve all sinners which truly repent and believe in him of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences and by his Authority committed to me I absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen Of the first of these three places deduced all of them from the best Monuments and Records of the Church of England the Lord Primate takes notice in his Answer to the Jesuites challenge p. 109. where he treatech purposely of the Priests power to forgive sins but gives us such a gloss upon it as utterly subverts as well the Doctrine of this Church in that particular as her purpose in it and of the second he takes notice p. 81. where he speaks purposely of Confession but gives us such a gloss upon that also as he did on the other But of the third which is more positive and material then the other two he is not pleased to take any notice at all as if no such Doctrine were either taught by the Church of England or no such power had been ever exercised by the Ministers of it For in the canvassing of this point he declares sometimes that the Priest doth forgive sins onely declarative by the way of declaration only when on the consideration of the true Faith and sincere Repentance of the party penitent he doth declare unto him in the name of God that his sins are pardoned and sometimes that the Priest forgives sins only optativè by the way of prayers and intercession when on the like consideration he makes his prayers unto God that the sins of the penitent may be pardoned Neither of which comes up unto the Doctrine of the Church of England which holdeth that the Priest forgiveth sins authoritativè by vertue of a power committed to him by our Lord and Saviour That the supreme power of forgiving sins is in God alone against whose Divine Majesty all sins of what sort soever may be truly said to be committed was never questioned by any which pretended to the Christian faith The power which is given to the Priest is but a delegated gower such as is exercised by Judges under Soveraign Princes where they are not tied unto the Verdict of twelve men as with us in England who by the power committed to them in their several Circuits and Divisions do actually absolve the party which is brought before them if on good proof they find him innocent of the crimes which he stands accused for and so discharge him of his Irons And such a power as this I say is both given to and exercised by the Priests or Presbyters in the Church of England For if they did forgive sins onely Declarativè that form of Absolution which follows the general Confession in the beginning of the Common-prayer-Book would have been sufficient that is to say Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which desireth not the death of a sinner but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live and hath given power and commandment to his Ministers to declare and pronounce to his people being penitent the absolution and remission of their sins and pardoneth and absolveth all them which truly repent and unfainedly believe his holy Gospel Or if he did forgive sins onely Optativè in the way of prayers and intercession there could not be a better way of Absolution then that which is prescribed to be used by the Priest or Bishop after the general confession made by such
unto the Lord in whose house they are by doing reverence and obeisance at their coming in and going out of the Church Chancel or Chappel according to the most ancient custome of the Primitive Church in the purest times and of this Church also for many years in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth What low esteem the Lord Primate had of these two Canons and how little he conformed himself to the tenour and intent thereof might be easily proved but that I am to go no further in these particulars then Doctor Bernard doth conduct me All therefore I shall adde is this that though these Canons did not bind the Lord Primate unto any observance when he was in Ireland yet at such time as he was in England and constantly repaired to one Church or other he was obliged both in obedience to the Law and for the avoiding of scandal to conform unto them Cum Romae sum jejuno Sabbato cum hic sum non jejuno Sabbato was the rule and practice of Saint Ambrose who was not only Arch-Bishop of Millan but perhaps Lord Primate of the Diocess of Italy also All this considered Doctor Bernard needed not to have told us of him That he did not affect some arbitrary innovations not within the compass of the Rule and Order of the Book and that he did not take upon him to introduce any Rite or Ceremony upon his own opinion of Decency till the Church had judged it so p. 147. It was too manifest by that which hath been said before that there were no works of supererogation to be lookt for from him It had been well if he had readily observed what was commanded in the Book as Doctor Bernard sayes he did when he was in Ireland and had applyed himself to those Decencies which the Church had judged to be fit when he was iâ— England Nor needed so much boast be made of his Conformity to the Discipline Liturgy and Articles of the Church of England or that many of those who were asperst by the name of Puritans received such satisfaction from him as to concur with him in the above said particulars p. 160. For this might very well be done and yet the men remain as unconformable to the Rules of the Church their kneeling at the Communion excepted onely as they were before Matters which had not now been brought to the publick view if Doctor Bernard had not given as well the hints as the occasion for these Discoveries So that it may be truly said in the words of Tacitus though not altogether in his meaning Pessimum inimicorum genus laudantes viz. that the Panegyrist is sometimes a mans greatest enemy unless perhaps it might be Doctor Bernards purpose to set forth the Lord Primate as the pattern of a complete Prelate as Xenophon set forth his Cyrus for the example of a gallant and perfect Prince by telling us rather what he should have been then what he was Finally whereas the Doctor tells us that each party had a great and reverent opinion of him p. 163. I am sorry that any part of it should be lost by this unlucky Adventure this most unseasonable publishing of his private Letters For my part I had no intent of saying any thing to lessen that great and reverent opinion which each party had of him and am sorry that Doctor Bernard hath provoked me to say so much And so I lay him down again in the Bed of Peace desiring heartily ut placida compostus morte quiescat that he may rest in quiet there without more disturbances SECT XII Doctor Bernards endevour to revive the old quarrel touching the Lord Primate and the Earl of Strafford the Answerers resolution not to engage himself therein The Canon of the year 1634. for the approving and receiving of the Articles of the Church of England A Recapitulation of the Arguments used by the Observator to prove that the superinducing of the Articles of the Church of England was a repealing of the Articles of Ireland Doctor Bernards weak Answers to those Arguments and his weaker Arguments to prove the contrary The Difference between the Articles of England and Ireland consists not onely in some Circumstantials as Doctor Bernard would fain have it A view of some material and substantial differences between those Articles The Conclusion of the whole Discourse ANd now we are come to Doctor Bernard who promising no more then the confirmation of something which the Lord Primate had written in one of his Letters viz. That the Articles of Ireland were not called in Anno 1634. as Doctor Heylyn had affirmed p. 173. must needs go somewhat out of his way to hook in the remembrance of some former Quarrels which Doctor Heylyn had forgotten and is not now willing to remember The Author of the Book called Extraneus vapulans whosoever he was declares himself unwilling to receive that Question Whether the Lord Primate had any sharp tooth against the Lord Lieutenant or not in regard the parties were both dead and all displeasures buried in the same grave with them p. 292. He also wished that the Doctor by his Panegyrick had not awakened those enquiries which were like to be so little advantagious to the memory of that learned Prelate p. 296. And finally conceived that Doctor Bernard would have done that reverend person and himself some right if he had suffered such Enquiries to die with the parties most concerned in them without reviving them again by his double diligence p. 298. Which passages if Doctor Bernard had laid to heart he would not so unseasonably have endevoured to revive that Quarrel and brought Doctor Heylyn on the stage provoking him by several wayes to resume that Argument which he had long since laid aside and is resolved upon no provocation whatsoever to take up again He hath laid the Lord Primate down again in the Bed of Peace and will not raise him from it by a new disturbance But whereas Doctor Bernard tells us that it is left to the prudence of a third person who hath a convenient opportunity in his History to clear the whole in the Examination and Moderation of all the passages between Mr. l'Estrange and him p. 114. That third person whosoever he is must be very prudent if he can carry the matter so and with such Moderation as not to give offence to both parties and be called to an account by each of them for his Examination For so it hapneth many times that he who voluntarily steps in to part a fray between two persons gets some knocks on both sides at the least from one And therefore it was well resolved by one of the old Heathen Philosophers Se nolle inter duos Amicos Arbitrum esse c. that he vvould never arbitrate any business betvveen tvvo of his Friends because he vvas sure that by his so doing he must make one of them to become his Enemy The preamble of Doctor Bernard being thus passed over
those Heresies More easily is the Argument answered importing That the reception into our use the form of the Lords Prayer according to S. Matthew should by the same reason abrogate that of S. Luke being the shorter For first the Lords Prayer as it stands in S. Lukes Gospel was never received into the Lyturgie of the Church and therefore could not be abrogated by the Churches making choice of the other which we find in S. Matthew And secondly it was not in the power of the Church to have abrogated that Prayer as it stands in S. Luke because it is a part of the Gospel of the word of God which the Church hath no Authority to change or alter and much lesse to abrogate All that the Church can be said to have done in this particular is that the Church made choice rather of the Lords Prayer as it stands in S. Matthew then as it stands in S. Luke when it was absolutely in her power to make choice of either No contrariety to be found in any one clause of the said two Pater Nosters nor any the least contradiction to be met with between those three Creeds or any one Article of the same differing no otherwise in a manner but as the Commentary and the Text. But so it is not in the Case which is now before us nor in the supposition of making one general confession of all the Reformed Churches if they were severally subscribed with the Irish Articles He that subscribes unto the Articles of Ireland may without any doubt or scruple subscribe unto the Articles or Confessions of all the Reformed or Calvinian Churches But if he take the Articles of England also into that account he must of necessity subscribe to many plain and manifest contrarieties Against this nothing hath been said but that there is no substantial difference between those Articles as was conceived by the Lord Primate p. 118. that both Confessions are consistent as is affirmed by Doctor Bernards most eminent learned and judicious person p. 121. and finally that there is no difference in substance but onely in Method number of Subjects determined and other circumstantials as is declared by Doctor Bernard p. 119. But if the contrary be proved and that it shall appear that there is a substantial difference between those Articles that the Confessions of both Churches are inconsistent and that they do not onely differ in the Circumstantials of Method Number and the like I hope that then it will be granted that the approving and receiving of the Articles of England was virtually and in effect an Abrogating of the former Articles of the Church of Ireland And for the proof of this I shall compare some passages in the Articles of Ireland as they passed in Convocation Anno 1615. with the Doctrines publickly professed in the Church of England either contained expresly and in terminis in the Book of Articles or else delivered in some other publick Monument of Record of the Church of England to which those Articles relate First then The Articles of the Church of Ireland have entertained and incorporated the Nine Articles of Lambeth containing all the Calvinian Rigours in the Points of Predestination Grace Free-will c. which Articles or any of them could never find admittance in the Church of England by reason of their inconsistency with the authorized Doctrines of it as before was said so that by the incorporating of those Nine Articles into the Articles of Ireland there are as many aberrations from the doctrine of the Church of England Secondly It is said of Christ Num. 30. that for our sakes he endured most grievous torments immediately in his Soul and most painful sufferings in his Body The enduring of which grievous torments in his Soul as Calvin not without some touch of Blasphemy did first devise so did he lay it down for the true sense and meaning of the Article of Christs descending into Hell In which expression as the Articles of Ireland have taken up the words of Calvin so it may rationally be conceived that they take them with his meaning and construction also the rather in regard that there is no particular Article of Christs descending into Hell as in those of England and consequently no such Doctrine of a local Descent as the Church of England hath maintained Thirdly it is declared Num. 50. That the Abstinencies which are appointed by publick order of that State for eating of Fish and forbearing of Flesh at certain times and dayes appointed are no wayes meant to be Religious Fasts nor intended for the maintenance of any superstition in the choice of meats but are grounded meerly upon Politick Considerations for provision of things tending to the better preservation of the Common-wealth But the Church of England not taking notice of any Politick Considerations for the breeding of Cattle increase of shipping or the like as the Statists do nor intending the maintenance of any Superstition in choice of meats as the Papists do retaineth both her Weekly and her Annual Fasts ex vi Catholicae consuetudinis as Apostolical and Primitive Institutions and she retains them also not as Politick but as Religious Fasts as appears by the Epistle for Ash-wednesday taken out of the second Chapter of Joel from verse 12. unto verse 18. and by the Gospel for that day taken out of the sixth Chapter of S. Matthew from verse 16. unto verse 22. And more particularly from the Prayer appointed to be used on the first Sunday in Lent viz. O Lord which for our sakes didst fast fourty dayes and fourty nights give us grace to use such abstinence that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit we may ever obey the Godly motions in righteousness and true holinesse to thy honour and glory which livest and reignest c. Fourthly It is affirmed Num. 56. That the first day of the week which is the Lords day is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God and therefore we are bound to rest therein from our common and daily businesse and to bestow that leisure upon Holy Exercises both publick and private How contrary this is to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Book of Homilies we have seen already and if it be contrary to the Book of Homilies it must be also contrary to the Book of Articles by which those Homilies are approved and recommended to the use of the Church Besides it is declared in the seventh of those Articles first that the Law given by Moses as touching Ceremonies and Rites do not bind Christian men nor ought the Civil Precepts thereof to be received in any Common-wealth and secondly that no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral So that the Ceremonial part of the Law of Moses being wholly abrogated there is no more to be observed in any of the said Commandments then that which is naturally and plainly moral For otherwise the Old Testament must be
Doctor Heylyn Part 2. page 43. to prove that Ignatius would have both the Sabbath and the Lords day observed were afterwards added by some later Grecian who was afraid that the custome of keeping both dayes observed in his time should appear otherwise to be directly opposite to the sentence of Ignatius p. 95 96. This is the easiest charge that may be and if there were nothing else intended but to shew that the Historian was not the Master of so much good fortune as to have seen the old Latine Copy in Caius Library before he undertook that work we might here end this Section without more ado But the main matter aim'd at in it is to disprove that which the Historian hath delivered concerning the observing of both dayes as well the old Sabbath as the new Lords day by the Primitive Christians That which the Lord Primate cites out of the third Book of Eusebius to shew that the main intention of Ignatius was to oppose the Ebionites of his own time is no more then what he might have found in the same Part and Page of the History of the Sabbath which himselfe hath cited and therefore might have here been spared were it not used by him as an Argument to prove that which no body doth deny viz. That by their imitation of the Church herein the antiquity of the observation of the Lords day might be further confirmed p. 96. Nor is it to much better purpose that he proves the universality of the observance of the Lords day out of another passage of the same Eusebius in his Book De laudibus Constantini in which he doth but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having no other Adversary that I know of to contend withal The Author of that History had said so much of the Antiquity of the Lords day and the Universality of the observance of the same with many other things conducing to the honour of that sacred day that he received thanks for it sent to him in the name of divers Ministers living in Buckinghamshire and Surrey though of a different perswasion from him in other points about that day whom he never saw But that the Saturday or old Sabbath was not kept holy at the first by the Primitive Christians by those especially who lived in the Eastern parts of the Roman Empire neither the antiquity nor the universality of keeping the Lords day can evince at all For on the contrary that the old Sabbath was kept holy by the Primitive Christians is proved first by the Constitutions of the Apostles ascribed to Clement of good Authority in the Church though not made by them where it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which it evidently appears that both dayes were ordered to be kept holy the one in memorial of the Creation the other of the Resurrection Which Constitutions being not thought to be of weight enough to make good the point though of so great antiquity and estimation as to be mentioned and made use of by Epiphanius a right learned man are somewhat backt by the Authority of Theophilus Antiochenus an old Eastern Bishop who lived not long time after Ignatius Anno 174. by whom we are told of that great honour which the seventh day or Jewish Sabbath had attained unto qui apud omnes mortales celebris est as before we had it in our fourth Section on another occasion with all sorts of people But if this be not plain enough as I think it is they are secondly most strongly countenanced by the Authority of the Synod held in Laodicea a Town of Phrygia Anno 314. where there passed a Canon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 touching the reading of the Gospels with the other Scriptures upon the Saturday or Sabbath that in the time of Lent there should be no oblation made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but on the Saturday and the Lords day onely neither that any festival should then be observed in memory of any Martyrs but that their names onely should be commemorated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon the Lords day and the Sabbaths Which Canons were not made as may appear plainly by the Histories of these elder times for the introduction of any new observance never used before but for the Declaration and Confirmation of the ancient usage Thirdly we find in Gregory Nyssen that some of the people who had neglected to observe the Saturday were reproved by him on the Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. With what face saith the Father wilt thou look upon the Lords day which hast dishonoured the Sabbath knowest thou not that these dayes are Sisters and that whosoever doth despise the one doth affront the other Fourthly by Saint Basil the Saturday or Sabbath is reckoned for one of those four dayes on which the Christians of his time used weekly to participate of the blessed Eucharist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lords day Wednesday and Friday being the other three And though it cannot be denied but that the observation of the Saturday began to lessen and decay in divers places towards the latter end of the fourth Century and in some other places as namely the Isle of Cyprus and the great City of Alexandria following therein the Custom of the Church of Rome had never been observed at all Yet fifthly Epiphanius Bishop of Salamis in the Isle of Cyprus could not but acknowledge that in other places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they used to celebrate the holy Sacrament and hold their publick meetings on the Sabbath day And sixthly the Homily De Semonte ascribed to Athanasius doth affirm as much as to the publick Assemblies of the Christians on the Sabbath day and so doth Socrates the Historian who accounts both dayes for weekly festivals 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that on them both the Congregation used to be assembled and the whole Liturgy performed By which account besides Socrates and the Author of the Constitutions against whom some objections have been pretended we have the Testimonies of Theophilus Antiochenus Gregory Nyssen Basil Epiphanius and the Author of the Homily De Semente ascribed to Athanasius most plain and positive in this point that both the Sabbath and the Lords day were observed for days of publick meeting by the Eastern Christians as was affirmed before out of the Epistle of Ignatius ad Magnes And I conceive that the Lord Primate did not or could not think or if he did cannot be justified for so thinking that men of such an eminent sanctity as those Fathers were would falsifie that Epistle of Ignatius to serve their turns or adde any thing to that Epistle which they found not in it out of a fear that the custome of keeping both dayes observed in their times should appear otherwise to be directly opposite to the sentence of Ignatius p. 96. And therefore Doctor Heylyn taking the words of Ignatius as he found them in the